Forced to Love
by titaniumroze
Summary: When a new marriage law is imposed, Hermione can't believe her luck of having to marrry her former love's older brother, Fred. Then things start to change, and secrets are revealed. Can they learn to love each other?
1. The Ministry will be Morons

**Hermione PoV**

I shook myself awake from the nightmare of the War. It had ended now, and I was beyond endlessly relieved, but the nightmares continued to haunt me.

"Hermione," Mrs Weasley called up the stairs. "Can you come down here a minute?"

I hopped out of her bed, and transfigured my pyjamas into something decent. I grabbed a jumper from the washing pile and ran down the stairs, pulling it on. I skidded into the kitchen and was surprised to see the whole Weasley clan sitting at the elongated kitchen table.

There was Bill and Fleur, with her noticeable baby lump; Ron who was trying not to meet my eyes; Fred, who looked disgusted at something or another; George, who was grimacing and holding his girlfriend Angelina's hand; Charlie, looking more worn down than usual; Mr and Mrs Weasley, watching me enter the room with a grim expression on their faces; Percy and his fiancée Audrey; Ginny, who I saw now, was holding hands with Harry – took them long enough.

I were staying here for the time being – I had been since the end of the War. Harry was staying at Grimmauld Palace, unofficially with Ginny. I still needed to find my parents. But I was surprised to see the others – almost everyone else had moved out by now.

"What is it? Why is everyone here?" I asked, now beginning to get worried.

"Hermione, dear. There's been a letter." I sunk into the seat that Fred had pulled out for me. I relaxed my usual posture and slumped. A letter – that couldn't be too bad – could it? Fred patted my back comfortingly. Mrs Weasley silently handed the letter over to me and I scanned it quickly.

_Dear The Burrow household,_

_Due to the population and happiness decrease in the Second Wizarding War, we have decided to impose a new law._

_This is a marriage law. If you are already engaged, then you will have to marry them in 6 months. We will expect at least one child in two years. However, if you are single, then we have picked out a match for you. This document is enclosed within the envelope._

_If you are not a British citizen, then you are excused. We will give a one day to adjust to your situation, before we arrange for the meetings between your betrothed. _

_We have picked out a partner that is suited to you. This has been judged by your tracing spell that every wizard has. Even though it will have disappeared through your coming of age, we will have already received enough information to make a suitable judgement. You will not have met them before. This is to prevent problems from previous arguments._

_Divorces will not be permitted from now on unless you have been together for over 5 years. Divorces that are in progress will not be permitted. Of course we advise for you not to split up, as it would affect your future child greatly and cause them a dysfunctional life._

I snorted as I read this part, and looked across at Harry as he raised an eyebrow at me.

"Dysfunctional. They got that right with you Harry!" he rolled his eyes and gestured for me to continue reading the ministry letter.

_Disobedience to this law will result in the removal of magical powers and banishment to the Muggle world._

_We thank you for your cooperation,_

_Terminus Reicn_

_Head of Social Studies._

At the bottom of the letter was a small note.

Percy and I managed to find this a day early, so we have time to adjust and change things. Don't tell anyone – we only had a few influences ~ Arthur & Percy.

I threw down the letter with a growl.

"How could they do this to us? We've only just mended ourselves from the war, and now they expect us to do this!" I exclaimed, outraged. Harry shook his head at me, clearly disagreeing with it too.

"I – um." He looked from me to Ginny and seemed to find new renowned confidence. He pulled out his chair and knelt down on one knee. Ginny's eyes widened almost comically. She pulled in a breath and answered before he could ask the question.

"Yes! Yes! I will! A million times yes!" Ginny squealed and flung her arms around him. He managed to extract himself and rolled his eyes at us. I smiled – they were so perfect for each over.

"Well, if you let me ask." He mumbled. She smiled graciously and mimed zipping up her lips, throwing a mischievous wink at the rest of us.

"Ginerva Molly Weasley, I love you with all my heart and soul, and I can't imagine anyone better to spend the rest of my life with. Will you marry me?" He looked into her eyes, and I could tell that he was nervous about the reaction. Like Ginny was going to say no! Anyway, she'd already agreed to it.

She wrapped her arms around him, tightened her hold and gave him a passionate kiss, to which he responded eagerly. They barely came up for air before going at it again. Everyone pointedly looked away. Fred cleared his throat.

"Ew. We do _not_ need to see _that_." he said, scrunching his nose up.

Ginny pulled herself away from Harry and scowled, while he blushed and straightened his glasses.

"Oi!" she snapped at him, "We just got engaged over here!"

I smiled at them and leaned forwards. "Well I think I congratulations is in order! Molly?" I looked over at Mrs Weasley, who had been pestering me to call her Molly, and she shook herself out of the temporary slumber she had slipped into.

"Oh! Yes, yes!" she shook her head and drew her wand, muttering a spell before beaming at the newly found couple. She squealed and clapped her hands together.

"Another wedding! How exciting! Ginny, we have to start planning!" and before the rest of the table had really processed the information, she was chatting to Ginny about whatever other women do before their weddings. Then, 14 butterbeers came floating in.

"Straight from the Three Broomsticks. I have express mail order on my wand!" Molly exclaimed as she hurriedly passed the drinks around before rushing around to Harry and Ginny and squeezing the two around the middle. I took a swig of my drink, but was left with a sour taste. I was over the moon for these two – they had been falling for each over, at least in Harry's case, since 6th year. However, I felt that we should address the pressing issue – the marriage law. I frowned as it tried to find an obvious loophole to the law. I couldn't find any – I would have to read up on it.

Mrs Weasley cleared her throat and moved back to her chair.

"Well, I'm assuming that you'll want to know who you're matched with." She smiled weakly.

"Bloody hell! Of course we do!" shouted Ron in his usual over reactive manner. George held up one finger and everyone looked down the table at him.

"Actually, Angie and I have been meaning to tell you something." He looked down again uncomfortably. Fred was looking at his twin, confused.

"And – just to let you know before you start attacking me – this was only settled two days ago. We were just waiting for the perfect moment to tell you." He paused again and looked everyone in the eye before continuing. Angelina squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"We're engaged to be married." The second half of his sentence was drowned out by a small scream from Mrs Weasley. George leaned back, an amused expression on his face. Fred just looked astonished. He quickly recovered his composure and put on the cool the twins were so famous for.

"Congrats, l'il bro!" he winked at George; he growled.

"For the _last_ time, I am older than you! By 14 minutes!" he looked over to Angelina for backup. "Tell him Angie!" he whined. She just smiled at him and rolled her eyes.

"I can't believe someone that immature is getting married." Bill shook his head. Mrs Weasley let out a squeal again, and she ran around the table to clutch her son's head to her chest.

"Oh Georgikins! You're so grown up now!"

Bill looked at his mum, disbelief etched onto his face.

"I swear I just said the opposite of that." He turned to Charlie. "Didn't I just say the opposite of that?" Charlie nodded his head, clearly at ease as it was clear he was exempt from the law. He was on a joint British-Romanian citizenship still.

"Molly, calm yourself, you can fuss over this later. Right now, these three will want to know who they have ended up with." Mr Weasley gestured at the one twin left, Ron and I. I was worried about who I was going to end up with – the letter said that I wouldn't know them.

"But first, Harry, here's yours." He handed Harry a slip of fresh parchment and he unfolded it. Ginny studied it with a frown and then let out a laugh.

"'Ou vere you meant to be vive 'Arry?" Fleur asked, and worry line crossing her beautiful face. He smiled up at her, and passed it across the table. I shifted my chair a little closer so that I could also read it.

_Harry James Potter is herby betrothed to Ginerva Molly Weasley._

_We apologize for the misinformation in the letter to you, as our Daily Prophet readers would not be happy with the results if we matched you two any differently._

My jaw dropped in disbelief. This wasn't fair! Just because he was famous...

"Wait!" I spoke up. "Can't everyone just say that they're engaged?" Audrey shook her head sadly at me. She was the only one who hadn't made eye contact with me yet.

"Hermione – they can track engagement when a wizard commits. Sorry." She looked down, almost ashamed that she had to be saying these words. Percy patted her back soothingly. Not to sound selfish, but wasn't I meant to be getting comforted? I was going to have to marry a complete stranger!

Mr Weasley handed Ron his slip and hesitated before giving me mine.

"I think the Ministry made a slip up but – ah – lets not mention it, shall we?" he told me with a sparkle in his eye. He passed me the slip of parchment and I slit it open with shaking hands. My eyes widened as I looked over it.

"Dad, why haven't I been given a –" Fred cut of, looking at the writing in my hand over my shoulder. He grabbed it out of my hand, and held it up to the light, as I remembered Harry telling me that George did so long ago with Ron's prefect letter. There, written clearly on the thick parchment with the official wax Ministry stamp on the other side, were the words:

_Hermione Jean Granger is hereby betrothed to Fred Gideon Weasley._


	2. Ron will be Ron

**Ron PoV**

I scowled at the name on the card. _Susan Bones_. Why did I have to not know the girl?

Hermione looked up from her letter, visibly shocked - shown by the size of her beautiful brown eyes - by the contents and asked me the question I didn't want to answer.

"Who have you got Ron?" she looked at me with her big innocent eyes and I couldn't resist.

"Susan Bones." I frowned. "Who is she?" Hermione smiled when I revealed my future wife, as if she thought that it was a good thing she wasn't with me.

"That's great! She's really nice – she was in the D.A. you know? She now works as the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement - like her aunt was." She winked before continuing, trying to brighten up the gloomy situation. "And she is _really _pretty!"

I pulled a face at her. She clearly wasn't telling me something – I could tell that just by her puckered brow. And Fred didn't look too happy either. I wondered who the both of them had received.

Hermione was supposed to be with me. Me! Not some random guy that the ministry have given her. I was the one who loved her. I thought about this for a few moments, not missing the glance between Hermione and my older twin brother. I looked up, and around the table. I looked directly at Hermione before speaking.

"We have one day before this is officiated, right?" I looked at Harry as I spoke and he nodded, showing me Ginny's ring finger as proof that things could be changed. I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I swivelled in me seat to face the girl I had grown up with, and still loved.

I gulped and dropped out of my chair, landing on the floor on one knee. I looked up at Hermione and she let out a gasp, clearly realising what I was about to do. I took a deep breath, gathering my words and nerves.

"Hermione Jean Granger, I have loved you since the Yule Ball, and even though we fight, I love you. You're pretty, smart, confident, and I want you to be mine. I know I don't have a ring, but will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?" I could see tears sliding down her face at my confession. My heart clenched. What if she said no? I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't consider the other options, and I almost missed the shake of her head, only visible because of her wild hair that I loved so much. My eyes expanded in surprise. Did she just – say no to me? She shook her head again for conformation, as if reading my uncertain thoughts. I started to struggle for breath. She had rejected me! The one I was meant to be with had rejected me! I stood up shakily, not wanting anyone else to witness my breakdown. She stood up swiftly with me.

"Ron." She leant in, whispering fiercely in my ear. "We need to talk." She all but dragged me outside to sit by and old oak tree in my garden. I slumped against it, and heard the chatter resume in the dining room. She dropped my hand like it was made out of molten lead. I could feel the hurt register on my face and she recognised it too, as she picked up my hand and rubbed it soothingly.

"I am _so _sorry Ron. I wish it could be another way, but I just don't feel that way about you anymore. And what would happen if we _did_ get married? What would happen then? We would be constantly fighting. I just don't want you to be stuck with me for the rest of your life, as it is such a big decision. I don't love you anymore Ron, you're just going to accept that. I'll marry my match and you marry Susan. They would have placed us together if they thought we suited. It's meant to be." She spoke the last four words so softly I barely heard them. She was breaking my heart, and telling me to marry someone else? How cruel was that? Also, she had turned me down in front of my entire family. How humiliating was that? She had discarded me as she would an old boyfriend; not her best friend who had been there for her for more than 7 years. And who was this man that she was going to marry?

I shook my head to rid my bad thoughts and looked up to see her getting up to leave.

"Wait! You haven't told me who you're going to marry!" she glanced back at me, then at the kitchen door. She bit her lip, as sure sign that she was nervous. She backed away slowly, but just before she reached the door, she stopped and looked into my eyes.

"It's Fred." She whirled around and vanished into the house, leaving me shocked. Fred - my brother Fred? It couldn't be. But she didn't say the surname... and she looked so worried. I pushed myself to my feet and strode towards the house, resolving to myself that I would solve this somehow. I stepped into the dining room, and all eyes were on me. Hermione was back in her seat, arms wrapped around her legs protectively, her big doe-like eyes looking at me, scared of my potential outburst. I was known for my anger. I softened slightly at her, but then my gaze fell on the figure next to her. Fred was sitting by her side, slightly turned towards my girl, with a look of protectiveness on his face. Like she already belonged to him.

Anger built up inside me, before it erupted in a roar of shouting. I was furious.

"HOW DARE YOU? SHE IS MINE! I DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE NOW MATCHED TO HER, OR WHATEVER, BECAUSE SHE WILL NEVER LOVE YOU. How could you?" I said the last bit slightly softer and then realised my mistake. Nobody else had known about the pairing – I could tell that by their faces. There was a mixture there: George was grinning from ear to ear, but still weary of my outburst; Harry was looking apologetic; Hermione looked saddened; and my parents just looked happy. I couldn't believe them – Hermione was being ripped away from me and they were happy for my brother? What kind of sick, twisted world was it if my parents now longer cared anything about my happiness over anyone else's? Didn't I matter?

I stalked out of the room. Why was he already so protective of her? He barely knew her – unlike me. Yeah, she had been spending a lot of time with the twins lately, but Angelina and George were always there with them. My thoughts suddenly stopped and then picked up again at double speed. What if they had been alone before?

My thoughts chaotically tumbled out of my control. What if they had been alone together? Did they like each over? Did they kiss? Were they together? Oh my god, my big brother was dating the love of my life. Another roll of fury emerged within me, and I barely managed to suppress it. I knew that these thoughts were absurd, but I couldn't help it.

I stopped by the lake; I hadn't even realised where I was going. I angrily punched a tree in my frustration, and a couple of snidgets flew off in indignation. Charlie had been keeping them here, eager to help repopulate the species. He would be so angry with me if he knew I did that.

I sat down on the shore and dropped my head into my hands. How had it come to this? My best friend engaged to my little sister, my older twin secretly engaged too, and now the woman I loved was going to marry my other older twin. Could my life get any worse? I thought about this for a while and then settled on; actually, it could. The war was over, and although we had to have a marriage law, we were all still alive. It had been a close call with Fred and the wall, but we were all still here, scarred but alive.

I fell back onto the sandy shore, my face still covered by my hands, and I heard soft footsteps approach. I sat up swiftly, and my eyes fell on my best mate. Who knew that Harry would have such a stealthy walk? Must have been the whole hunt for horcurxes. He silently lowered himself down beside me, and then turned to stare at me with his bright green eyes, still not saying a word.

"What am I going to do, Harry? I love her, and now she's marrying Fred. What can I do?" Harry looked at me sadly, and shook his head.

"The only thing you can do now – accept it. She has to be with him now – it's the law. If she refused your engagement, you know by Wizarding laws, you have to wait a week? That'll be too late for anything then – she'll be Fred's fiancée by then. I'm so sorry." She opened his arms and I leant into them. He knew that I was sad enough to have a hug; I was usually reserved enough to refuse much human contact. "I know it hurts now, but it'll get better soon. Trust me." I nodded and wiped my eyes, embarrassed that tears had been leaking out of them.

"Thanks Harry. This means a lot."

I turned back to stare at The Burrow. What was I going to do now? Harry patted my back soothingly.

"You'll get around it eventually. Everyone does." He too turned back to The Burrow, although his head was tilted upwards as he gazed at the stars. His face broke out in a grin.

"Ginny said yes! Can you believe it? I'm going to marry Ginny!" the happiness of this simple gesture was evident in his face.

"Yeah, congrats to that." I nodded at him. I was still heartbroken from my own proposal, and didn't really want to think about a happy ending I wouldn't have. Harry raised his eyebrows at me.

"Aren't you supposed to give me that big brother 'you will never hurt her or else' talk?" he shoved my shoulder playfully, but I wasn't in the mood.

"Don't hurt her, or I'll come after you or whatever." I said dismissively.

"One of the others can do it. She has a lot of brothers you know!" the corners of my mouth twitched at this. I was going to really look forward to having Harry a proper part of the family – even if it meant him being my brother-in-law.


	3. Secrets will be Revealed

**Fred PoV**

As soon as I saw my name in Hermione's hand, I knew that I was a goner. Hermione Granger. I was supposed to marry _Hermione Granger_. My little brother's best friend. And somehow, I was fine with it. If anything, I felt a little protective with Ron glaring at her. I shifted slightly, and his glare soon switched to me. Whoops. That got him yelling.

After the brunt of his attack stopped, he stormed out of the room and Harry swiftly followed. Hermione quickly excused herself from the table and got up, walking stealthily up to her room. I made to get up, but Mum put a hand on my arm to stop me. She looked nervously at Dad. I didn't think I'd ever seen her nervous before.

"We have something to tell you Freddie." My heart sped up. What was it they wanted to tell me? Was it bad? Was someone hurt? I looked around the table at all of the familiar faces, most of them appearing as confused as I felt. Mum glanced at Dad for support, and he nodded his head at her for encouragement. She met eyes with me again.

"Freddie, when you were hit by that wall, you lost a lot of blood. And I mean a lot. Almost half – they had to give you transfusions for you to live." She shivered slightly at the thought that one of her beloved sons (i.e. her favourite one, me), might die, and Dad patted her hand comfortingly. She shook her head before continuing.

"However, there was a problem." My eyes widened at this revelation and my mind spun through all of the possibilities. Was I a ghost? No – my hand wasn't going through the table it rested on. Did someone else have to give me blood? I hoped not. My Mum interrupted my thoughts.

"There wasn't enough human blood – what with the war going on – so they had to give you the only thing available. You have veela-blood." I almost fell out of my seat in surprise. I was not expecting that. Nobody else was, either, as shown by the mixtures of the levels of shock on their faces. I spluttered and tried to force out the obvious question, but Charlie beat me to the block.

"What does this mean?" he voiced the question. Mum shrugged.

"I don't know exactly, I wasn't listening to the healers much at the time, as I was so worried about you." While this was sweet in its own way, I still wanted to know what was going on. I turned to Fleur, as she was the only one who could understand my predicament. She answered my unspoken question.

"You are a full veela, with all of the traits. You don't 'ave the ability to change into a bird, as zat is only for born veelas when zey pass the coming-of-age ceremony at the age of 16. Alt'oug', I _do_ zink zat you can make fireballs out oth your 'ands." She instantly held up her hands to stop me. "But _please_, do not attempt to now." I smiled at her, as she had seemed to be able to predict what I had been about to do.

"Youwill of course be more powerful zan I am, as you are a full-veela w'ereas I am a quarter. 'Owever, I zink zat I am able to do different zings. I can control it a lot better zan you." She snapped her fingers, and instantly as small flame burst to life in the palm of her hand. I stared at it, astonished, until she put it out. We all looked at her dumbfounded. She just shrugged.

"I didn't want anyone to know. Anyway, the judges at the Triwizard Tournament said zat I would be disqualified if I used any of my veela powers." Enthusiastically, I clicked my fingers, and was immediately disappointed when nothing happened. Fleur patted my arm gently. "It takes time to learn." I grinned at her, now thoroughly interested. I had never paid much attention to Fleur before, other than as to refer to her as 'Bill's wife', but she was actually really smart.

"Cool! Is there anything else you can do?" I asked eagerly. Bill rolled his eyes; apparently he saw that one coming. Fleur smiled too.

She stood up and spread her arms out beside her. She closed her hand into fists and suddenly feathers burst from them. As she was only wearing a vest-top, we could see that the feathers had erupted from her skin all the way up to her shoulders, where they bunched together around to shoulder blades. They slowly grew and elongated. They were a beautiful cream colour, and the shade matched her hair. They eventually stopped growing and Fleur looked down at the. She grinned – something I had never seen her do before, and flapped her arms gently. A gust of wind swept over all of us sitting at the table, ruffling our hair. Bill was smiling with adoration up at her, and then he turned to smirk at us.

"Bet you never knew she could do that, did you?" he looked at Mum, who was staring at Fleur's arms in awe, before leaning in and conspiratorially whispering to me. "Makes sex that bit more interesting." He leant back and winked. Fleur, being the only one who seemed to have heard him, smacked him upside his head. Her feathers seemed to have disappeared as she sat down.

"William Weasley." She scolded. I held out my hand in front of me, and then made a fist. Everyone leaned forward expectantly, curious of what would happen. I held it there for a few seconds, keeping everyone is suspense, but I opened it again when it somehow felt tickly. There, lying on the palm of my hand was a vibrant bright orange feather that clashed with my hair perfectly. Percy leant forwards to delicately pick the feather off my hand to examine it.

"I've never seen a feather in orange before." He mumbled. I didn't care – I was ecstatic. I had new powers- I wasn't just a wizard – I had veela powers as well! George leant forward to clap me on the back.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a girl Freddie?" He tipped his chair away from me in mock horror. "I shared my _bathroom_ with you!" I rolled my eyes at his usual antics.

"Veelas can be boys George. How do you think they reproduce?" I asked. He leaned back in his chair and I laughed at his dumbfounded expression.

"How did you know that Forge?"

"You don't need to sound so shocked Gred! I did study once, you know!" I turned back to interrogate my sister-in-law for more answers.

"What else?" I asked keenly.

"Well, for one, now zat you know youare a veela, you will appear a lot more attractive to non-family women. Some are able to turn it on and of, like moi, but some are not. I remember in ze Tournament, w'en Ron asked me to go to ze Yule Ball. I 'ad turned on ze c'arm for Roger Davies and Ron got ze full blast as 'e was walking past!" she giggled uncharacteristically. "Poor boy, I felt so sorry for 'im; but it was very amusing at ze same time!" she laughed again. I thanked Merlin that Ron wasn't in the room at the time – he would have been mortified. Then again, after the shouting match that he had just had against me, I wasn't so sure that he didn't deserve it.

Fleur continued describing the newfound changed in me.

"Also, your feelings will c'ange a lot."

"Is that why I feel like this?" I realised. At my words Mum leaned forwards to press her hand against my forehead.

"Feel like what? The Healers said that there would be no side effects. Are you okay? Do we need to take you to St Mungos?" She looked very alarmed and I tried to reassure her.

"No, no I'm fine." I shook my head and turned back to Fleur. She knew what I was talking about. She soonanswered my earlier question.

"Yes. Veelas are loyal to the part of being a 'ufflepuff." I laughed at her joke, and then wondered how she knew about the Hogwarts houses. I was guessing that Bill had explained to her how our school system worked. For a brief moment, I speculated about what Beauxbatons was like. I shook the thought out of my head and gestured for her to continue.

"Veelas are also very protective oth zeir mate. Do you remember w'en Bill was attacked by Greyback?" she gave a dainty shudder. "'e 'ad been declared my fiancée – zus making the bond between us stronger – and I loved 'im. I 'ad also marked 'im. It took all of my willpower to not get up and to go and finish Greyback off like I wanted to." She gave a small growl. "'owever, I couldn't. I 'ad to stay by my mate Bill's side." She tilted her head to the side, examining me, and a small smirk graced her lips.

"You feel like zat, don't you?" she accused of me. I didn't know what I was feeling at the moment, and I dismissed the question as a new thought popped up.

"My mate‽" I exclaimed. At this moment, Hermione chose to enter the room with her perfect timing. She stood in the doorway, taking in everyone staring at her with shocked faces.

"What did I miss?"


	4. Luna will be Luna

**Hermione PoV**

Seeing as none of the Weasleys were able to tell me what they had all been talking about the moment before I stepped into the room, I chose to forget about it and to do something else to keep my mind off of it. I decided to go and visit Luna – I hadn't seen her for over a month.

I managed to contact her with our now modified DA galleons – I had changed them to send text-like messages – and she replied almost immediately. We agreed to meet so we could talk over an ice-cream at Florean Fortescue's _Ice Cream_ Parlour.

I was the first one to arrive there, as it hadn't taken long to explain to Ginny where and what I was doing. Surprisingly, she didn't want to come and join us, which was unusual as she loved Luna as a sister. She always wanted to get out of the Burrow, but she looked sort of distracted today. However, I dismissed the curious behaviour as wanting to spend time with her new fiancé.

I ordered my ice-cream and Luna's, and sat down to wait for her at an empty booth outside the shop. I watched the world go by as I did, and found that it was a much brighter place than it was during the war. All of the shops were back open again, and the twins' shop was booming. They were really rich now, and showered their family with gifts. They were still down to earth though, and they sometimes even brought gifts for Harry and I.

My favourite gift was given to me by Fred, when I had just gotten my first job at the ministry. I've been promoted now, and I'm head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, but that day meant a lot to me. He got me a new quill; although that sounds simple, it was really nice. It was a good-luck charmed quill, and it hadn't even been put on the shelves yet. He had told me that he wanted me to have the first one. It was really sweet.

I'd only just started digging in to my sugar-free blueberry and walnut ice-cream when she arrived. She promptly flopped into her chair and immediately began chatting to me.

"I'm so glad that you wanted to meet up today!" she squealed. She was a lot more happy than I had seen her in a while – she had still been scarred over being kidnapped and tortured during the war. She'd mostly recovered now though, and was almost as dreamy and bouncy as before. I just smiled at her as she tucked into her peanut and cheese ice-cream. She'd always had the appetite people associated with the Weasleys'.

She swallowed before continuing – she thankfully _didn't_ have Ron's manners. "You know I started dating that guy a few months back but wouldn't tell you his name?" she asked. I nodded in memory. I recalled that she had kept his identity a secret so we wouldn't' hurt him if he hurt her. I must admit, that guy would've had a few nasty hexes coming his way if her had hurt her in any way. I leant forwards, worried now, even though I hadn't heard about him from her in a while.

"Well, his name is Rolf Scamander– grandson of Newt Scamander. He's a magizoologist" I grinned; I knew exactly who both of these men were. The second one was obviously the man who wrote 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'; the other one was a regular visitor to the **Department of International Magical Cooperation**. I'd always assumed that he did a lot of travelling for his job and, although I spoke to him often, I never asked him about that. I couldn't think of a better man for her – he even had the same job and hobbies! I wondered why she was telling me now. She'd stopped talking, waiting for my input and reaction to the thing that she hadn't mentioned yet. I raised my eyebrows at her.

"So…?" I prompted. She looked confused for a few seconds before she realised her lapse of speech.

"Oh! Yeah, anyway. Daddy managed to find out about that mew marriage law thing, and I was matched to him!" she squealed and I giggled at her. "The ministry must be really good at this matching thing – I heard that Harry and Ginny got matched together, and George and Angelina, and – did you hear? Pansy and Goyle." I remembered that George and Angelina had apparently been intended to be matched before the ministry had found out that they were engaged. "They must put everyone with their perfect matches!" she clapped her hands together excitedly and proceeded to attack her cold treat. I sat there, not doing anything, as I slowly processed this new information.

She was right; there wasn't anyone who wasn't suited for each over. Even Ron and Susan would go great together, and balance each over out. It was only Fred and I that were the anomalies.

Luna, by then having finished devouring her ice-cream while mine sat there almost untouched, interrupted my thoughts with the dreaded question of which the answer to I had been trying hard not to think about. I was trying not to think about most of today, actually.

"So who did you get matched with?" she asked curiously, jumping straight to the bullet. I hesitated, and then told her the whole story. I recounted earlier today's events, and once I had finished telling them to her, she was grinning.

"What?" I asked confused as to why she was amused at what I saw as such a drastic situation. She just smirked and shook her head at me. I was not expecting what she said to me next.

"Hermione Jean Granger, you are a heart breaker, you know that?" I gasped at her words and instantly retorted.

"What? No I'm not!" but I couldn't help myself, "But what makes you think that?" she smiled evilly at me and begun her speech.

"Well, as one of the Golden Trio, you are extremely famous and smart – you could have anyone! Yet you keep the 'cool' reputation up by being unattainable like you have no interest in men." she paused for a second. "Of course this makes men throw themselves at you even more." she mumbled, before speaking up. "And you don't even notice!" I listened, astounded. Men were interested in me? Me - plain, boring, ugly book-worm Granger? No – this couldn't be true.

"Then," she continued, barely pausing for a breath. "You get matched to one half of the most famous – let alone rich – pranksters to have ever lived. You don't even sound happy about it! I know he wasn't your choice, but can you honestly think of anyone better?" I pondered this for a few seconds, and then realised that I really couldn't. I hadn't been interested in anyone before the matching, and now all I could think about wad Fred. I didn't like him; of course, I just knew that he was my match.

She grinned, triumphant now. "See! He's perfect for you – a perfect girl for a perfect guy. Besides, you can't change it anyway; unless you want to lose your magic." I made an automatic grimace – I didn't know if I could live without it anymore, it had saved my life so many times.

She took a deep breath of air while she had a break in her speech, and I tried to tell her that she was wrong, and that I wasn't that cruel, but she just started talking again.

"And, finally, you get proposed to by another member of the Golden Trio – there are only two of them you know – he's your best friend, is the 2nd most famous man, alive, in the world, and you know him better than almost everyone." she stopped accusing me for a second, and voiced her last line more like a question, and much more softly. "And you turn him down?"

She looked into my eyes, obviously looking for the answer, but no one can read me that easily. I glanced away though, just in case. The truth was that I didn't love Ron, and I knew that I never would – however, I could see myself loving Fred. I was scared to admit it, even to myself. Also, I didn't want Fred to have to marry a stranger.

Her look turned incredulous and, even though I knew she was joking, I began to feel a little guilty. Did I really ignore men like that? And how did she know me so well about the Ron/Fred thing? She looked like she had decided to let that last question go, and she backtrack to the last topic.

"How many guys asked you out for lunch yesterday?" she asked me. This was an odd question, but I let it slide. I frowned at her; they were just friendly offers.

"I get them all the time – they're just–" with a startling jolt, I realised that they indeed had been asking me out on dates. Thank God I had turned them down. Luna raised an eyebrow at me, and finished off my broken sentence.

"Looking for a date or more." she added. I blushed as I realised what she was implying. I was really thankful that I had always politely turned them down because of my work load. Luna continued the mind boggling chat that she seemed to be leading.

"And they were the brave ones!" she concluded. I thought that she had finally finished, and I was mercifully not wrong.

Was she really right – could I have any guy I wanted? As if she had read my mind with Legilimens, she decided to prove her point by jumping up from the table and stalking over to a nearby couple.

I made frantic gestures with my hands to get her to stop, but she just smiled innocently at me. She tapped on the man's shoulder and then leant down to whisper something in his ear. The women he was dining with looked up in an outrage, clearly offended that Luna was talking to her date. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear what she was saying to the man, but I saw him turn around to look at me. He raised his eyebrows when he saw who I was and I could hear his tone of voice change to interest as he answered Luna. I shuddered, and out of the corner of my vision I saw the women narrow her eyes at him, and me.

Just as he was about to get up to approach me, Luna clamped down a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down into his seat. She looked him in the eyes as she held him there, and then announced in a loud voice: "Well, she's not interested in you. And, her fiancé will be hearing about this." and with that, she spun away from the man, who now had his jaw hanging open, and calmly walked back to our table, exchanging a few high-fives with admirers along the way.

I looked at the now destroyed couple again just in time to see that woman stand up and slap the man across his face. She then stalked out, but not until I had seen the tears glistening in her pretty eyes.

By this time, Luna had made it back to me, and now a lot of people were staring at us. I felt absolutely horrible – I had just – kind-of – helped to split that couple up by just being there. However, when Luna read the expression on my face, which was clearly displaying my negative thoughts, she hastened to reassure me.

"It's okay! We just revealed to that woman what a bad man he is for her to date. We saved her really." when she put it that way, I couldn't help but agree with her. She beamed, happy that she had proved my doubts wrong.

I looked at Luna in a new light now; she was so different compared to how she had been previous to the War. Her personality had really changed over the years. She was still very dreamy, but all of her hanging out with Ginny had brought out her mischievous side that no-one knew she had. Now, she was almost as daring and confident as my – gulp – future sister- in-law.

It was still hard to think that way - with Fred being my fiancé and me soon being related to the Weasleys. Sooner or later anyway – we had 6 months.

At least I got to be Ginny and Fleur's sister-in-laws, as well as now Angelina, Susan and Audrey too. The cool thing was that I got to have Harry as a brother-in-law. This was great because I'd always thought of him as a brother to me. Well, almost always. I remembered one time in 6th year where my hormones were going crazy. I even thought that I liked the ferret for a while! It was only because he was handsome, and I remembered my disgust at this simple attraction. I soon got over it though – thank goodness.

I'd also liked Harry for a bit, but I tried not to let it show. It soon passed, but not before Harry mistakenly worked out that I liked Ron. I let this go – it was easier than admitting the truth.

I did get to become a Weasley though – and we would have 4 more Mrs Weasleys once the 6 months was up! That makes 6 Mrs Weasleys and 1 Mrs Potter. Personally, I think Ginny got the better off deal! I got to join the family – with Mr and Mrs Weasley, Bill, Charlie, Percy, the twins, Ron and Ginny; as well as all of their respective spouses. But I would have to marry Fred. While this wasn't exactly a bad thing, I was worried because I'd never thought about him in that way before – not even in my crazy 6th year.

Just as I pulled my scrambled thought back to the present, and to the conversation, an all too familiar redhead walked past. I crossed my fingers under the table and hoped that it was George, but I could tell even from this distance that it was his twin. Fred. I could see both his ears and the scar down his left cheek where the wall hit him. It was my future husband and father of my children. Great, I hadn't even thought about that part yet!

My thoughts were yet again disturbed by the Ginny-replica calling out to the man clad in magenta robes – his work robes. He started and turned around. A grin lit up his face when he saw who it was. Something about his smile set off a feeling inside me, but I didn't know quite what it was. Besides, I had more pressing issues on hand – he was walking over to us!

Luna looked deliberately between the two of us once he was seated at our small table, squished in next to me. She had a true Ginny grin on her face. She jumped up and took a step back, and suddenly I worked out her intentions. She was evil.

"Well! Got to go - you know me – busy and all that." I narrowed my eyes at her suspiciously. I did know her, and I also knew that she had the whole afternoon free.

Fred, who obviously didn't know that Luna was lying, cheerily waved her off with a smile on his face. As soon as she had _**disapparated **_however, his bright grin slid of his face and he turned to look at me.

Well, **this** wouldn't be awkward…


	5. Meetings will be Unavoidable

**Fred PoV**

I excused myself shortly after Ginny had told us that Granger was going out. The conversation had been rapidly deteriorating and I decided to follow her lead by going out too. I was ready to leave, but Ginny stood in front of the fireplace with her hands on her hips. She was saying something about: 'I turned down Luna for you.' It didn't make much sense. Thankfully, Harry pulled her out of the way, and I could see that she was distracted. I shot him a grateful smile which he dutifully returned; however, I made a mental note to have the 'big brother talk' with him soon if he was marrying Ginny. I was determined to be the first out of all my brothers.

I had decided just to head home – to the flat above our shop in Diagon Alley – to get some alone time. Not that I didn't love everyone that is, I just needed some time to think things through.

Firstly, I was engaged to Granger? And I had to have kids with her in 2 years? How sick was that? They were practically telling us that we had to consummate our marriage.

People only get one life and most were already destroyed by the wars. Now the Ministry was just ruining it all over again by not letting people choose their own lives, to be with who they want to be with. Forced marriage would get nobody anywhere.

This had already damaged Ron and Granger's relationship – they had been great friends until this mess had come along and pressured Ron into proposing to Granger. I don't know why she turned him own though – I thought she liked him. It would be better than having to marry me. Prankster and bookworm. Not _exactly_ the perfect couple.

Secondly, that whole Veela thing! I mean - what? Why had I just found out about this – at 20 – and why had the signs only just started showing? And why did Fleur say that Granger was my mate?

I crashed on our orange sofa (everything in here was orange) and stretched out. I flashed back to just a few minutes ago.

When that little bit of riveting information had slipped out, Fleur had instantly clammed up and refused to say anything else. We'd all tried to get her to talk, even Bill as he was as intrigued as the rest of us, but that Veela girl was stubborn. She'd kept her mouth shut however, and opened it only to utter a "Bye!" to us and a kiss for Bill on the cheek. She rushed out of the house and apparated away. We all looked at Bill and he answered our unspoken pleas.

"I'll try." he shrugged. "But I can't promise anything!" the conversation dwindled quite a lot then, as Mum started a sappy talk about wedding flowers with Ginny. I glanced over the table to scowl at George, but he was busy chatting happily to Angelina. I rolled my eyes to no one in particular. What was the point of having a twin if they were too busy smooching up with their fiancée? What happened to 'Bachelors forever, or bachelors together.'? I sighed because really, I was happy to see that he found such a perfect match.

I sank further down into the plush sofa and tried not to nod off. I hadn't been taking enough time off this week as I was covering for George on his non-storefront hours. It made hard work but Angelina and him needed some time after the war. I leant back and closed my eyes.

Surely this was a dream – this much couldn't happen in just one day, could it? But somehow, I subconsciously knew that it was true. All of it. My imagination had never been that good.

It was always George who thought up the ideas and advertising, while I created the formulas and put things into action. I also handled the accounts, making sure that we didn't spend too much on raw ingredients then we were getting in from the shop. It was never a cause of great concern however; as there always seemed to be people who wanted to buy something.

I sighed and thought the situation through.

1. I was engaged to Granger

2. I had to marry her in 6 months

3. I had to have a kid with her in 2 years

4. I was – well – a kind of veela

Great, nothing to worry about at all! I groaned as I slowly stood up feeling the need to satisfy my hungry stomach. I waved my wand at the bread in the bread cupboard and it flew into a muggle contraption Harry had shown us called a toaster. I t was an odd thing, but I rather liked it as it made things a lot easier – I couldn't remember the charm for toasting. We weren't quite as good at household charms as Mum yet.

What I _really_ wanted to do was to talk to Granger to get her views and solutions on the matter, but obviously that wasn't an option. I would be all tongue-tied around her and I wouldn't know what to say. It would be so uncomfortable and she would probably think that I was a freak for the way I would be staring at her. Can't say I blame her though – I am part veela.

I flicked my wand and guided the toast to a plate. I pulled the peanut butter and marmite out from the cupboard and began to lather it on my bread. This was my nervous food; it's weird how everyone else had sweets and cakes and I have this. I coated the two slices and quickly inhaled them. I had no idea I was so hungry.

I was still confused as to why I had only just started to feel about Granger this way. I had known her for months after my ear incident, yet I had thought of her only as a friend. I added that to my mental list to ask my parents and Fleur when I went back to the Burrow.

I wondered around the kitchen, gathering the ingredients necessary for 3 soups. I'd decided to make one for myself for later, and two for George now. He loved my cooking – at least he said he did – and I knew Angelina would be with him, having just revealed that they were engaged and all that. A second later though, I began to make four, since George had the appetite all of us Weasleys were famous for.

I had them finished in two minutes flat, almost a record for me, and sent 3 of them to George via our newly developed transportation product. It was much quicker than an hour, much more reliable (well, it was planned to be – it was a little temperamental at the moment) and could take much bigger and more fragile items. It could deliver to anywhere else that had a transmitter. We had one installed each in the Burrow, in Angelina's flat as she had given us a lot of help, and in our flat.

We'd come up with the idea from a muggle item dad was tinkering with – a fax machine. It could send pieces of paper to anywhere with another machine. We'd limited the weight to parcels, as we'd agreed that if it hit off we didn't want to take owls out of business. Anyway, we weren't sure how long the charms on it would last anyway.

We hadn't decided on a name for it yet as it hadn't even touched the shelves. It was still in the testing period of product making, but we were sure that it was safe for inanimate objects. I received a note with a stone tied to it – this was our way round the weight limit, which we would have to further refine – and I picked it up to read George's barely legible untidy scrawl.

_Fred_

_Thanks mate! This'll help us to get our energy levels back up!_

_The better looking twin forever and always,_

_George_

I rolled my eyes more at his sign of then the note. He'd fallen into the habit of adding this last sentence on everywhere he could ever since he blackmailed me into saying it to him. I laughed at the content of the note though – I had a shrewd suspicion of what they had been doing to deplete their energy supply.

I grabbed my plate and tossed it into the sink for washing. I heard a sickening crunch and winced. Guess I'd forgotten to replace that cushioning charm last night. I poked at the pieces of china lying in the dishwater and muttered _'Repero'. _It was the easiest spell ever really, but I was so jumbled at the moment that I didn't trust myself to do it non-verbally like usual.

My feet automatically led me down the stairs to our stock room where we kept and tested our newest products. I pushed open the practically destroyed door that concealed the entrance to our flat from anyone who happened to be in the stock room and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind me. To anyone other than George and I, this would just look like another part of the wall covered with messy shelves.

I began to check inventory and soon discovered that we were fresh out of spell checking quills – the exam season was coming up – and Weasleys' Wildfire Whiz-bangs were hovering dangerously low to being sold out.

I noted down the products that I would need to buy on my hand, and grabbed my money bag from in my safe under the counter in the main store. George wasn't too pleased that I had bewitched it to keep him out too. It took a bit of reminding him that I didn't have a girlfriend to spend on to get him to stop pestering me about it. However, I had a fiancée now.

I strolled out of the shop and wasn't surprised to see a queue already forming.

"Sorry guys!" I called. "Family crisis, we'll be open and a couple of hours!" There was some grumbling about this, but nobody bunged and inch. Maybe it was because of the new limit we had set on how many people should be allowed in our shop at one time. 500 was just about right I thought, but there were way more people than that coming a day, hence the queuing. We'd enforced the rule after Verity had been knocked over by a surge in the crowd and quit, blaming us for letting our shop become too 'rowdy'.

That hadn't been a good week. George and I were sprinting from one place to the other, trying to be everywhere at once. We'd got a new staff member, Lemuel Grunnion, who was very enthusiastic and thankfully much less formal than Verity. We'd noticed his application because something stood out – his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Alberic Grunnion, the man who invented the Dungbomb. Lemuel hadn't found this quite as amusing as we had when we stuck one in his locker, but he got over it soon enough when he saw his pay check.

Lee also now worked here part-time while his radio broadcasting business started up. We'd tried to give him a start boost, but then he'd insisted that he'd work for the money, and that wasn't really the point at all. We had too much money really – it just kept coming in – but he had now delusioned himself into thinking he had to pay us back by working here without a salary. Ridiculous if you ask me – if we can't give our best mate money, then who can we give it to? We both hated to see him struggle for money, so George and I took turns to buy little things for him; if he knew what we were doing, he didn't comment.

I swerved in the street to avoid a goblin leading a thestral towards Magical Menagerie and tried not to get pulled off into another thought, but my mind didn't seem to be listening to me today. I smirked at the people who were bumping into it, yet I was astonished as to how many people actually seemed to be able to see the thing. The stupid war must've done that to them – and me – I couldn't see them before either.

I patted its back as it passed and a lump of black hair came off in my hand. I hastily pocketed it and glanced around. It might have been useful for later invisible mind products.

I was happy to see a goblin outside of Gringotts – Granger's work must have been paying off. She'd been campaigning for wizards to give them some wand lore skills, in return for metalwork advice from the goblins. Ollivander had complied with the wizard's part of the deal, and a small team of metalworkers were working through the steps for goblin work in a forgery somewhere in Wales. Both of these exchanges had weakened the long-standing wall between the species – now the goblins were almost as accepted as any muggleborn was.

I'd just exited Slug and Jiggers Apothecary and was done for my shopping for the day, so I decided to simply head back to the shop and open up with or without George. I took the longer route through the main street back rather than the back alleys I usually used.

I'd just made it past Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour when I heard my name being called in a familiar feminine voice.

"Fred! Hey, over here Fred!" I turned on the spot and saw Luna and Granger sitting at a small parlour not too far away. My heart jumped a little as I saw her, and I inwardly cursed my newfound veela genes. I smiled sheepishly at her and, for some reason unbeknownst to me, this simple raised a furious blush on her face.

I saw her glance down into her lap then focus on my robes. I cursed again to myself – I'd donned my bright magenta work robes before coming out as they were my only clean set. I hadn't intended on seeing anyone I knew – she must've thought I looked like a right prat. They clashed with my hair horribly: good idea for a busy joke shop where you needed to stand out, but not so much on your first meeting with you fiancée since getting engaged.

Luna shuffled in the booth – away from Granger I noticed – and left me to squash in the only available gab next to her. Luna hopped up and made a big show of leaving. I wasn't really paying much attention to her as my senses were in overdrive. I could feel Granger's arm resting against mine, tensed in stress; I could smell the sweet flowery perfume she had always worn; and I was so close that I could see every freckle on her nose. I'd noticed that she hadn't moved away.

I refocused on Luna gabbling away. She was becoming more like Ginny every day. I smiled and nodded at Luna, not knowing at all what she was saying. She left us alone then and I turned to Granger with a cheesy grin that I soon dropped at the expression on her faced. She looked very uncomfortable. She tried not to look at me by focusing on her melting ice-cream.

Well, **this** wouldn't be awkward…

* * *

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	6. Memories will be Recalled

**Hermione PoV**

I absent-mindedly stirred my mush of an ice cream while I racked my brain for a coherent thought that I could speak out loud. I glanced next me, where Fred was alternating glances between me and the table so quickly I felt like yelling at him to stop it.

"So…" he began the opening to all awkward conversations.

"So…" I replied. I really was no better than him. I had absolutely no idea what to say. He pivoted in his seat and looked at me straight on.

"Granger, we need to talk." He began. I nodded mutely in agreement and he continued.

"Right." He took a deep breath. "So we have 6 months, Granger, 6 months to marry and have sex." Wow – there's nothing like a bit of bluntness to begin the conversation. I couldn't understand how he was talking so calmly about that – I was squirming in my seat just _thinking_ about it.

"So we've got to get comfortable with each other. I'm not saying that we have to fall in love or anything, just that we should become friends. Maybe you should come over and have dinner with me and George some nights?" I itched to correct his grammar, but I decided that it wouldn't reflect well on me. I opened my mouth to add to his statement but he cut me off as he held up his hand.

"Now I know that you will be trying to finds a loophole to the law, correct?" he asked. I nodded, choosing not to speak just yet. I could see why he and George were such good businessmen now.

"Good. But just in case – I'm not saying that I don't have every confidence in your abilities – but just in case, we should get to know each other." He dropped his hand and I took it as a sign to talk.

"That's a great idea, Fred. But first, you need to call me Hermione, not Granger." I clarified.

"Right, Granger. Sorry! Hermione. It'll take a while to get used to." He winked.

"I don't really know you, do I? Only as the prankster extraordinaire." I continued. He chuckled softly at this and retorted instantly.

"Bookworm." He grinned.

"Hey!" I giggled.

"Little-miss-prefect." I laughed outright.

"Not fair! You-"

"Ickle Ronnikin's first kiss." I narrowed my eyes at him but declined to tell him anything about Lavender. Clearly, Ron had managed to keep that secret.

"So how was it? Kissing my brother, I mean." He asked, an evil grin on his face. He asked for it.

"Well, it was really really sweet." I began. Fred grinned – obviously thinking that his brother was a pansy because his first kiss was 'sweet'.

"It was in the middle of the Battle of Hogwarts, and we'd just come back from the Chamber of Secrets – did you know that Ron can speak a little Parseltongue?" he shrugged.

"Anyway, that's another story. We were in the room of requirement, Harry was there too, and-"he cut me off.

"Wait – your first kiss, and Harry was there?" he snorted. "Way romantic Ron." I huffed and he jumped a little, as if he had forgotten I was there.

"Can I continue, or should I stop?" I asked, crossing my arms. "You _were_ the one who asked, were you not?"

"Yeah, sorry, continue." He said slightly sheepishly.

"Yeah, we were talking to Harry and the subject of the house elves in the kitchens came up somehow – don't ask me how." I said. "And Ron made the _sweetest_ comment – he said that we should go and find them. At first, Harry and I thought that he meant to get them to fight, but he actually meant to get them out of there. So they didn't end up like Dobby." I smiled a little at the memory.

"It really was a kid of spur of the moment thing – you know, an oh-no-I'm-going –to-die-soon kind of thing." I laughed. I didn't know if it was just me, or did his face look a little happier once I had said that?

"It didn't mean anything really. That was it." I said, and, yes, there it was – definitely happier. Why was he hopeful that there was nothing going on between Ron and me? He reached out and took my hand in his own and I gently squeezed it.

"Really? He asked, and his voice shone with hope.

"Really. It didn't mean anything at all. I didn't really want to die without being kissed, did I?" I joked. He smirked at me.

"Well then, you could've just come to me then!" I rolled my eyes at his flirting. I shook my head.

"Nah, wasn't George free?" I asked teasingly. He clutched at his chest dramatically.

"You would choose my twin over me? What kind of fiancée are you?" he asked, looking wounded.

"Well," I fingered the serviette on the table, "he **is** the cuter one." Fred just sat there and gaped at me. "Maybe it's the war wounds." I said, gesturing to my ear. "You know the ear?" Fred regained his composure and shrugged.

"You'd have to fight of Angelina." He reminded me.

"Damn. There goes my attempt to win over the cuter Weasley. Guess I'd have to settle for you then." I said grudgingly.

"Ahh well then." He smiled. "I'm not _too_ bad really." There was a short moment of silence, and I realised that we were still holding hands.

"Wait." He said. Something from our conversation seemed to have sunk in. "Ronnikins was _17_ when he had his first kiss?" he asked incredulously.

"Err – Fred?" I reminded him. "It was my first kiss too." His gleeful expression dropped and became confused.

"But Krum?" he began but I shook my head exasperatedly.

"Why does everyone assume that something was going on with us?" I cried, throwing my hands up in the air. He grinned, but grabbed my hand again.

"Just because we had conversation, doesn't mean that we snogged all the time." I grumbled and trailed off.

"So first kiss, huh, Granger?" he nudged my playfully. I blushed.

"Yeah, I would never have gotton one if I hadn't kissed him." I rolled my eyes. "Your brother is such a wimp when it comes to relationships."

"What!" I jumped at his sudden outburst. "Ron never initiated it? **You **kissed **him**? Oh Georgie, Ron is never going to hear the end of this!" he crooned.

I clamped my hand over his mouth and his blue eyes widened in surprise.

"Whmph-" he mumbled. I narrowed my eyes at him menacingly and he soon shut up and cowered under my gaze.

This was going to be fun.

"You **never** are going to tell **anyone** about this, ever!" I threatened. "Got it?" I asked. "**Got it?**" he hastily nodded and I released my hold on his face.

"Jeez Granger," he moaned, rubbing his jaw. "You pack a mighty slap." I giggled behind my hand.

"Don't laugh at me!" he demanded. It only fuelled me to giggle louder.

"Don't laugh at me!" he repeated, smiling beside himself now. He soon joined me and our peals of laughter echoed around the parlour as we laughed off the stress of the last few hours.

The other customers looked at us weirdly, as if they hadn't ever seen two young adults break down in laugher over a slushy ice-cream. They probably hadn't. Even the new owner, who had brought the place after Florean Fortescue had been killed, was laughing at us.

I had been wrong – this was actually quite fun, and not at all awkward. I sighed and spooned up my liquid dessert. I looked up at Fred

"What?" I asked. I was getting concerned by the way he was looking at me. Oh no, did he spike my food with one of his joke shop products? I pushed it away just in case. "What?" did I have something on my face? I wiped at my face frantically, pulling out my wand to scougrify it. God – how embarrassing. His hand caught my wrist halfway to my face, and he plucked my wand out of my grasp.

"We'll have none of that cursing my face off malarkey here. Remember Eloise Midgen?" I withdrew my hand from his grasp, and grabbed my wand. He backed off. "It's okay, it's okay." He said reassuringly. "You're still as beautiful as ever."

We both froze. Did he just say what I thought he said? By the look on his face, I could tell that he was having the same thoughts. I couldn't believe he just said that. I was wrong. Maybe this was awkward.

All through my 5th year I had harboured a crush for him, but I had thankfully grown out of it. What would 16 year old me be saying if they heard this? I thought back to the moment when the twins had joined me in the common room, sitting on either side of the arm of my chair while I finished my charms essay.

_I absently doodled on my spare sheet of parchment. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the Weasley twins appeared. I ignored them as usual, and tried not to think about how close Fred was standing to me. They both sat down on each arm or my plush armchair in the common room and watched me as I drew on my paper. I was well aware of their presence, but it didn't stop me from doodling what I had been doodling all week._

"_We can see you writing 'I Weasley', you know." Fred said, making me jump, blush, and stuff my notes into my bag. The twins leant towards me, identical grins on their identical faces._

"_It can't be Ginny because, well, you're a girl." George began._

"_And we don't think you're gay." Fred added._

"_It can't be Ron, because you've grown out of that and because you have standards." I grinned, and they instantly saw that George was right._

"_Not Percy." Fred continued, and I tried not to blush again, "Because he's a prat. Not Charlie 'cos you've never met him." He listed off._

"_And not Bill because he's engaged to Fleur." George concluded. I'd sat there, trying not to seem like they unnerved me. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for their verdict._

"_Soooo….. which one of us do you like?" they chorused. I suddenly jumped up and ran up to my room, barely leaving my excuse to do homework. I could hear them laughing behind me – they could tell that they'd hit the nerve._

I snapped out of my memory. This wasn't the time to reminisce. But that was all over now. This was the present – I didn't like Fred that way. Did I?

I laughed nervously and decided it was the right time to leave. I stood up to go and dropped his hand but, once again, Fred caught my wrist in his hand. His eyes pleaded with me to stay and I stayed where I was, not leaving, not sitting back down again.

"Please stay. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Let's just forget that it ever happened – please just sit down." I glanced around the room once again before sitting down, this time slightly further away from Fred. I'm sure that he noticed, as his frown deepened and his expression became slightly crestfallen, but he didn't say anything.

I looked around the parlour to pass the awkward silence. I looked at all of the people in the booths. I didn't recognise many of them, but I did wave to Padma Patil, who was sitting in the corner with Michael Corner. At first, I thought 'isn't he a year younger than her?', but then I realised that it didn't matter anyway, and definitely wouldn't by tomorrow. I suddenly felt guilty – here I was, having to marry someone that I knew and clearly got along well with, while everyone else got strangers. I was very grateful for the ministry's mistake now.

I dropped my face to my arms on the table and saw that Fred was tapping his wand against his knee nervously. I observed the shop – the brown wood of the counter, the dark, faded blue of the wallpaper, and a flash of red.

I peered closer to the couple sitting right at the other side of the shop. Fred glanced at me and followed my eyes.

"Is that –?" he began.

"It is."


	7. Eyes will be Decieved

_**Firstly, I'd like to say thank you so much to all of my lovely reviewers! 25 in 6 chapters! :D Also, thank you to my followers! 63! I have 63 followers! And 21 favourites! Thank you so much!**_

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**Hermione PoV**

Fred and I exited the shop, gossiping like old women. We even finished each other's sentences.

"I can't believe that they would-"

"Already do that!"

"I know!" he looked at me.

"We haven't even done that."

"No." I agreed sheepishly, cowering under his gaze. He smiled at me, a smile that made my heart jump to my mouth, and took my hand gently in his larger one. Our skin touched, and I felt sparks coursing through my body. It soon disappeared, but it left a tingly feeling in my hand where he was touching me. I looked up into Fred's face and saw that he was surprised too.

He raised an eyebrow in confusion, but otherwise said nothing. I did notice that he tightened the grip on my hand though. We laughed as we pushed through the crowds of Diagon Alley. Eventually, after the 17th paparazzi member had almost knocked me over to get a picture of us, Fred had glamoured us.

I could just see the headlines – 'HERMIONE GRANGER, GOLDEN TRIO GIRL, DATES FELLOW WAR HERO FRED WEASLEY, TWIN 2.' I just couldn't wait for that issue to come out. Notice that I thought that sarcastically. I wondered how they were going to cover the marriage law.

The glamour charm he had cast was quite clever actually, not much unlike the one I had cast on Ron before we had robbed Gringotts. I still couldn't not find it funny that I could say that. 'I robbed Gringotts'.

I now was a blonde, with pin-straight hair that I would've died for just months ago. Nowadays, it just made me myself. My brown eyes had changed to a pretty blue, as I saw in a shop window, and my skin had turned a few shades paler. I was a little shorter than I normally was, and now I had to crane my neck just to talk to Fred.

I could see that he was laughing at my new height, and I scowled at him. He had given himself a few extra inches to counteract the ones he had taken away from me, and now he had long light brown hair. His blue eyes were now a boring murky brown, and all of his freckles had disappeared. His skin was tanned, and he had somehow made himself look like a male model.

I huffed and crossed my eyes, ready to pull my wand out of my pocket to change it. He held his arms up in surrender.

"Okay! Okay! Now need to give me the look!" he grinned. I smiled at the first part, but it then dropped off my face as I heard the second bit.

"What do you mean, the look?" I asked, stepping closer to him with the added height that he had just bestowed on me. I was still only chin height on him, but as I glared up at him he gulped and took a small step back. I glanced at his body quickly before taking a step back too. I hadn't realised our close proximity. He swallowed and then shrugged.

"Umm, well, it's the thing we call the look you give us. You know, when you're threatening us?" he took another step back, as if he was afraid I would hurt him. Well, I couldn't exactly hurt my future husband could I? I'd have to see about the others though.

"What others?" I asked. I didn't exactly want my hit list to have innocents on it. He took another small step back. As if any distance would hinder my spell casting ability. He seemed to realise this, and, in an attempt to get on my good side by being to one to tell me everything, stepped closer.

"Ron and Harry came up with it. They told me and George last year. Ginny knows too. Nobody's bothered to tell Charlie, Percy or Bill though – you hardly see them." He smiled in what he thought was a sheepish way, and my hard shell cracked.

"You have no idea –" I giggled, "How silly you look!" he didn't do anything but nervously join in.

"Seriously though," I wheezed, unable to catch a breath through my sudden laughing fit. "What expression were you aiming for?" he pulled himself up to his full height, which was definitely not natural, and put his hands on his hips in a very feminine gesture which just fuelled my laughter.

"A please-don't-kill-me-smile?" he pleaded with his big eyes. Somehow, I didn't like them that colour, so I changed them back to their natural blue. He didn't even notice, but I had an easier time talking to him when I looked into his bright blue eyes.

I looked up into his eyes, and his met mine. We'd stopped in the middle of the busy street, and now people were milling and pushing around. I didn't notice though, and neither did Fred. My eyes were locked with his. His blue eyes sparkled with something that I didn't recognise, and he'd subconsciously reached out to grab my hand again. I leant up onto my tiptoes to see his face better, and he moved closer to me. If I didn't know better, then I would think that we were almost going to kiss.

Someone pushed past me roughly and we snapped out of our little world. I stepped out of the way of a small girl with a squirming cat in her arms, and the movement pulled our hands apart. I smiled at the child, who fortunately didn't recognise me, and looked back at Fred.

He had been left behind in the hustle of the crowd, and I struggled make my way back to him. He grinned down at me and grabbed my hand again. I shivered as I felt the familiar sparks again. I decided to forget about that little moment. We let ourselves get pushed down the street with the crowd, but didn't let go of each other. It was only when we stopped outside a familiar-looking building that I realised where we were going.

Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was now open, even without Fred. George must have opened it recently. I looked at the small queue and raised my eyebrow. He winked down at me.

"Full capacity charms." I nodded in understanding and he pulled me inside the building as two other people left, their arms full of merchandise.

A few people grumbled at us, but we were already inside. He dragged me past the bustling people, and the shelves crammed with merchandise. I was led past the counter and opened a barely noticeable door that was half hidden by a magenta curtain that matched their robes.

He stood aside and gestured to me to enter the room. I walked past him, and the door that said 'Family only' and glanced around the room. It was large, but somehow still cosy. It was different from the back room that customers we allowed in.

One half of the room was covered in shelves, and there were more different types of cauldrons than Potage's Cauldron Shop itself. Potions ingredients lined the walls and there was a table with more scorch marks then not. The half of the room that was closest to us had several plush sofas, not unlike the Gryffindor common room, and also had the same red walls. There was a small coffee table that didn't look so scarred in the middle of the seats, and there was a large jar of sweets sitting on it appetizingly.

He closed the door behind him and led me to the nicest looking sofa. He sat down on the left side and I sat at the other end, curling my legs up underneath me.

"Do you like it?" he asked. I smiled as I stretched my arms. It really was another piece of extraordinary magic – it mayn't have looked it, but I could tell how much work and skill had gone into this place.

"It's amazing. Just like the common room. Cosy and like home." I smiled again and we both shifted so we were sitting slightly closer to each other.

"I liked your eyes better the way they were." He smiled, lifting the charm on my eyes as I had done to him earlier.

"I -" Fred began, when suddenly, as if on cue, a tall ginger haired man burst into the room.

George strode towards us as we were sitting on the red sofa, pulling out his wand as he did so.

"What's going on here? Who are you? Why are you here?" he questioned relentlessly, his wand now trained on Fred, who he saw as the bigger threat. Fred instantly realised what was wrong, and lifted the glamour. This didn't seem to calm down George, however.

"Who are you?" he repeated, angrily now. Fred raised his hands in surrender as I looked at him worriedly.

"I'm Fred!" he laughed. "Your own twin!" he grinned. George narrowed his eyes at him.

"Yeah, I can see that. And you're supposed to be Granger, I guess?" he asked, turning to me. They'd always had a habit of calling me by my last name, and I'd never been able to get them to stop it.

"I am." George scoffed at me before turning back to his brother.

"I don't believe you!" he exclaimed, waving his wand around. "How do I know that before wasn't your original faces, and this is all a charm?" Fred looked a little gobsmacked at not being recognised by his own twin, so I jumped in.

"It really is us George" I said softly, putting my hand on his arm gently. "Why wouldn't it be?" he looked incredously at me.

"As you might know, last week, a _fan_ used polyjuice potion to manipulate me." I could see that he was implying the term a little lightly, and would have preferred to use the term _stalker_. "She'd somehow managed to get one of Ginny's hairs – how she managed that and got the potion, I don't know – and got into here. I was just packing away after a long day of work, so I figured that my sister was just here for a chat.

You can imagine my surprise when she started snogging me! Honestly, you don't know how weird it is to have your sister coming on to you!" he looked faintly disgusted.

I laughed behind my hand as Fred grinned at the story he'd obviously heard before.

"Yeah, and she wasn't too happy when she found out, was she?" Fred teased in playfully.

"I don't know why she hit _me_." George grumbled while Fred and I burst out in fits of laughter.

"Alright, so I know it's you Fred." He agreed, before turning to me. "But how are you sure that this is the real Hermione Granger?" he asked, all trace of playfulness gone. His wand had disappeared back into his robes, but I could tell that the threat of it was still there. I nodded once silently, before pulling back my sleeve and showing them one of the only things that I knew would convince them that I really was me.

They both gasped in unison before sitting next to me on the sofa and wrapping their eyes around me comfortingly.

"We're so sorry Granger!" George cried. All traces of his doubt were now gone, to be replaced with sympathy. Fred's face was the look of utmost concern, flashed with an anger that could only be described as fury. I shrugged my shoulders accidently knocking off their arms. Fred put his straight back on and pulled me closer to him as he gently pulled down my sleeve. He saw my expression, and hastily explained.

"No! It's not like that! It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just… well… I thought that you would be warmer!" he finished lamely. George rolled his eyes at my other side.

"What my dumb twin here means it that other people would judge you for it, and we don't want you to be treated any more differently. I smiled gratefully at him and Fred leant over to whack his brother on the head.

"Stop being so soppy!" he chastised. He looked down again and met my eyes. "But seriously, we are sorry." I sighed.

"It wasn't your fault, was it?" I asked. They both shook their heads confusingly. "So you don't have anything to be sorry about, do you?" I told them. Fred gently squeezed me and George just smiled. I wondered why Fred was touching me so much now. He wasn't usually like this – he normally acted more like George was at the moment.

As if he had somehow heard my thoughts, his arm snapped back from around me and he shuffled a good few inches to his left – away from me. I shivered – I hadn't realised that warmth that his body had brought into this cold room.

Fred seemed to have noticed, and flicked his wand to light the hearth. He was resolutely not looking at me, as he must have realised that he was practically hugging me. Even though I was like family, and was now his fiancée – ugh – he'd never hugged me before. What had changed?

I dismissed the strange thought and turned to George, as Fred didn't seem to be able to simply look me in the eye.

"So… George…" I began awkwardly. "Any new inventions?" He waggled his eyebrows at me as he got up from the sofa, still not answering my question.

"Maybe." He threw over his shoulder mysteriously as he re-entered the shop. I sighed. I clearly wasn't going to get anything out of him, while he had to work, at least.

I turned slightly reluctantly back to Fred. We were going have to have an awkward conversation sometime soon.

"We've recently made a new extendable ear. Wireless now!" he said excitably. Obviously that difficult conversation was meant for a later date.

"George is trying to develop a two-way extendable ear so you can communicate with each other."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Just like a walkie-talkie then!" I smiled at his confused expression.

"What –"

"Never mind." I cut him off. He grinned easily at me.

"What's new with you, Granger?" I rolled my eyes at the name.

"Well, I'm engaged." I said. Fred perked up in his seat.

"What's he like? Is he nice? Is he hot?" he teased, smirking.

"Well, he's nice alright." I allowed. "But he's nowhere near as hot as his twin!" I managed to stay serious for a second as I watched his smirk drop, before bursting out with laughter. He soon joined in.

The door slammed open and George stood in the doorway, eyeing us wearily. He had a box of products under one arm, and was holding a cage of Pygmy Puffs in the other hand.

"Right, lovebirds, either you come out of here and help, or you shut up. The customers are thinking it's weird." He turned to Fred.

"I knew we should've put silencing spells on here." He said. Fred grinned.

"But it wasn't me making the noise last time, was it?" he smiled like a Cheshire cat and George blushed to the roots of his flaming hair. He promptly spun around and stalked out of the door. His pride was ruined when he dropped the cage and the door broke open though. It took us the next 20 minutes to get all of the cute Puffs back into the cages.

I collapsed into the sofa and drew a breath.

"Alright." I sighed.

"What?" Fred asked. George had gone back into the shop, leaving us to sort out his mess.

"I'll help in the shop." I swept a glance up and down Fred's fluffy attire distastefully. It turned out that the Puffs moulted. His magenta robes were now even more pink then they had been before.

"You clearly need it."


	8. Jokes will be Told

**Wow! 31 reviews, 27 favourites and 79 followers! You guys really are great! And – for those who thought that I update too slow (I totally do!), this is here after a week! Enjoy **

**flutegirl98**

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**Hermione PoV**

The shop was a mess.

There were half-empty boxes of products everywhere, and the shelves were overflowing with pranks. However, the WonderWitch products were almost gone.

I helped around the shop a bit here and there, but once it closed we could get the real work done. George hurried off to Angelina's apartment again, leaving Fred and I alone in the shop.

I drew my wand, ready for some repair work, and looked over to him. He was looking – no staring – at me with those eyes which were so different, yet drew me to him. He quickly saw my inquiring glance and jumped as he turned towards a particularly rickety shelf. He cleared his throat before speaking.

"We should make sure that all of the shelves are safe." He gestured towards the overflowing shelf. I pulled my eyes away from him and looked to where he was pointing to. I smiled and nodded my agreement.

"Win_gar_dium levi_o_sa." I called, pointing my wand at the products. They lifted up and I directed them to the floor. This left the shelf free to adjust. Fred looked at me, impressed. I smirked.

"We learnt that in 1st year." He responded by rolling his eyes at me.

"I knew that!" he scoffed.

"'Course you did." I flicked my wand again and pointedly looked at Fred as the shelf magically repaired itself.

"Did you do non-verbal spells before you left?" I teased.

"Yeah." He pulled his wand out of his pocket and waved it hazardously around the room. The next thing I knew, I had dived onto the floor to save myself from being crushed by hundreds of boxes and pranks.

I looked up when I was sure that it was safe, and shakily stood up. Fred was slowly standing up from where he had ducked behind the counter and smiled sheepishly at me.

"Maybe I need a little more practice." He admitted.

Once I had sorted the products into safe enough piles, we got to work on repairing and duplicating the rest of the shelves. They now stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and Fred had used a crafty little charm to turn them all orange. The walls were already green, so with the blue ceiling and counter, orange shelves, green walls, yellow floor and the twins' magenta work robes; the place really was a rainbow. Somehow though, it all came together and worked.

When we had finally finished that long task, we retreated back to the family room for a break. The sheer volume of magic that we had just finished was enough for me to want a small rest to put my feet up.

I flopped onto the sofa nearest to the cosy fire and rested my feet on the scarred coffee table. Fred sat down in the armchair opposite me and flicked his wand. Soon enough, two butterbeers came zooming into the room and screeched to a halt next to our heads. I plucked mine out of the air and opened it, smelling the sweet aroma of the drink.

"Cheers." Fred began, raising his drink to clink with mine. I complied, and held mine slightly lower than his. He immediately copied me, thinking that it was some sort of game. We kept on lowering our bottles until we were both crouching on the floor next to the fire.

I giggled at him and pushed his out of the way.

"Mine's a millimetre lower!" he protested. I laughed at him again and leant back against the warmth of my sofa.

"Do you even know why we were doing that?" I asked him. He shook his head bemusedly.

"No, but it was fun!" he too was sitting back against his chair and taking swigs of his butterbeer.

"Well," I began, "In China, the lower you clink your glass, the more humble you are." I told him. I tried not to sound like a lecturer but fortunately he didn't look as bored as Ron normally did when I told him any information. In fact, he looked interested.

"How do you know that?" he asked, actually looking impressed at something I'd said.

"My Mum went to China for one of her dentistry conventions." I shrugged nonchalantly, before wrinkling my nose.

"But the dentistry is weird there." I said. "They may not eat many sugary foods, but they sure have very different systems of dentists in most parts. At least that's what my Mum told me. I don't think that she really had any idea of what they were saying."

"Oh. I forgot your parents were dentists." I gasped in mock shock and held my hand over my mouth.

"You mean you forgot your future parent-in-laws were dentists? Tut tut tut _not_ a good start Fred." I chastised, shaking my head at him.

He hung his head in shame but it snapped up as I sprung up from my position on the floor.

"What?" he asked worriedly, having also jumped up when I did. I looked at him in horror and he took in my widened eyes. He placed a hand on my shoulder and prompted me to continue.

"What's wrong, love?" I had relaxed at his contact, but we both visibly tensed at his last word. His arm dropped from my body and he took a small step away from me. _Love_? What was up with him recently? He was acting really weird – why did he call me _love_? I'd never heard anyone call him love before.

We'd both frozen, and I was the first to recover.

"It's nothing," I quickly reassured him, as he did look truly concerned in his frozen state. "I was just wondering how we were going to tell my parents." He breathed in deeply and smiled, most traces of embarrassment now gone. Now there was only the Weasley blush on the tips of his ears.

"Good." We both stood there for a few more awkward seconds before Fred clapped his hands together.

"Right!" He exclaimed. "We need to put those products back onto the shelves now, don't we?" he asked. "No time for dilly-dalling!" I followed him out of the room and back into the cluttered mess that was the store. I could barely see the bright yellow that was supposed to be the floor.

We stood back to back in fighting positions, and counted down from 3.

"3..2..1..go!" we shouted together. Out wands moved in synchronisation on both sides of the shop and we watched as the products flew back to the orange shelves. I turned and did the back of the store while Fred sorted out the window display. Surprisingly, the muggle card tricks were still there. I smiled at them and made a mental note to introduce my parent to this shop.

I turned back to the shop front and saw Fred watching me. He spun back to the front as soon as he saw that I could see him, but I could still see the blush creeping back up his ears.

This was really getting weird. I ignored it again as nerves for the marriage arrangement. I turned back to the messy shelves and started directing the products to the right places. The WonderWitch's products went in the corner by the door near the purple stands and I placed the Weasleys' Wild-Fire Whiz-Bangs fireworks on a high shelf, out of reach of small children. I sorted the rest of the products this way and turned around to see Fred looking at me with a look of approval and admiration mixed on his face.

I placed my hands on my hips and cocked my head to the side. "Do you like it?" I asked. It was different from their normal arrangement and I wasn't sure if he would agree with it.

"It's brilliant." He beamed. "George will love it." I grinned too.

I made the finishing touches – a couple of new banners reading 'Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes' and stowed my wand away in my pocket.

"Wow Granger, you've really got an eye for this sort of thing!" he complimented. I smiled shyly; I wasn't used to getting such obvious compliments.

We retired back to the family room and were soon chatting away as if we had known each other all of our lives. Well – at least half of it, in my part.

"You didn't!" I cried, but I could tell by the grin on Fred's face that stretched from ear to ear that he did. "You really turned all of Ron's chocolate frog cards into spiders?" I asked, appalled now.

"Well, yeah!" he hurried on after he saw my disapproving look. "But we did change them back – and we gave him the last one he needed." He told me, and I relaxed. "Now we only have 6 Cornelius Agrippa cards." He finished with a small sad look on his face. I rolled my eyes.

"We would have given him Claudius Ptolemy – we have 19 of them – but _someone_ gave it to him back in sixth year." He pointedly looked at me. I didn't see the problem – I didn't need it, so he could have it.

"Anyway, why _do_ you have so many chocolate frog cards?" I asked curiously. He just looked at me as if I was stupid.

"Product testing." Again, I rolled my eyes exasperatedly. "You know Granger; if you keep doing that you're going to strain your eyes." I smile weakly, but restrained myself from rolling them yet again. It had become sort of a habit for me.

"What do you think of your chocolate frog cards?" Fred asked suddenly. To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it. It was an honour, but I'd never really seen the point of them much anyways. I shrugged in response.

"Really‽" he asked. He was seemly shocked at my noncommittal shrug.

"Yeah, I mean, it's just sweets, isn't it? I never eat them anyway." I revealed, while his eyes bulged out of his eye sockets even more.

"You never eat chocolate?" he asked, astonished. I shook my head.

"What's wrong with you woman? I'll have to teach you to love it!" he declared. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"So you want to teach me to like something I've never liked; is unhealthy; and my parents have never wanted me to eat?" I asked. Fred's eyebrows furrowed as he processed the information in his head, then he nodded and grinned.

"Yep!" I sighed. I was never going to hear the end of this now. I held up my finger.

"But – I have one condition." I said. Fred's smile dropped slightly.

"What is it?" he asked warily.

"That I get no pranked chocolate or anything from here." I ruled. His shoulders drooped slightly.

"Alright. If you want to be boring." I yet again resisted rolling my eyes. Suddenly, he perked up.

"Want a sweet?" he asked cheerily. He held out the jar of sweets that had previously been sitting on the coffee table. I eyed them suspiciously.

"What are they?" I asked. I didn't exactly want to get a pranked sweet now.

"You'll just have to see." He said mysteriously. "But I promise, these are fully tested." I held my hand out for one, and he placed a green one into it.

"Do they have an antidote?" I asked. He nodded. "Are you going to have one?" I questioned. He stuck his tongue out at me before plucking a red one from the jar and popping it into his mouth. I did the same with the green one.

I instantly felt a change in my throat, and my mouth opened of its own accord. Without my initiation, my voice suddenly started singing Celestina Warbeck's 'A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love'. I winced, but I couldn't seem to find anything to stop it. On the other side of the sofa, Fred was bouncing up and down, rapping a song that I faintly recognised as a new single by the Weird Sisters.

I shuffled along the sofa towards him and prodded him sharply in the shoulder. He turned and narrowed his eyes at me, but couldn't say anything because of his incessant rapping. I held out my hand demandingly, and gave him what he had called 'The Look'. His eyes widened instantly, and even his music stuttered for a second.

He leant back and dug around in the pocket of his robes, eventually pulling out a small, sticky black sweet. It honestly didn't look very appetizing. I gingerly reached out and took a sweet from his palm. I held it uneasily.

I looked at him in a way that clearly meant – you first. He shrugged at me and popped his sweet inside his open mouth. He swallowed without chewing and the rapping instantly ceased, only to be replaced with a grin that rivalled the Cheshire cat's.

I took a deep breath and placed the sweet in my mouth – hard to do when you're singing opera – and gulped it down. It tasted disgusting, but at least I wasn't singing anymore.

"What were _they_?" I asked through bursts of laughter. He smiled, seeing now that I wasn't about to bite his head off.

"Singing sweets." He paused for a moment. "Or chorusing candies. Or harmonizing honeys. Or burst out with song bonbons. We haven't really decided yet." The twins were so good at their merchandise.

"Cool! So – what types are there?" I asked. I was curious now. Would I be able to slip some to my uptight bosses at work? They'd never know what hit them – or that it had been me, for that matter. I smiled inwardly at this thought.

He frowned for a moment, deep in thought. He held up his hands and began counting the sweets off.

"Beat-boxing – grey; classical – yellow; folk – brown; rock – orange; jazz – purple; opera – green; rap – red; ragtime – white; blues –light blue; yodelling – turquoise; reggae – dark blue; serenading – pink and I _think_ that's it. We may add more later though."

"Wow." I said. "That's like –" I counted them on my fingers. "12 types! I don't actually think that there _are_ any more." He beamed at my praise.

"We've timed them so they wear of after an hour, but we're thinking of ones that last the full 24 hours. Even when you're sleeping!" he said with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. I found myself being drawn in yet again to his deep blue orbs.

Fred looked away to reach for the sweet jar and I snapped out of my brief daze. What was I doing? I wasn't the type of girl to get 'lost' someone's eyes. That was so cliché. Fred picked up the jar and carried it over to an empty shelf on the other side of the room. I took a deep breath while his back was turned, and composed myself.

It wasn't like me to get so flustered in the presence of a boy. Fred just had this – aura – that seemed to draw me to him. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was irresistible. It was like something was pulling me to him. I wasn't sure how long I would be able to stay away from him. I didn't even know what it was. Did other people feel it?

I brushed aside these confusing thoughts aside as Fred made his way back to me. I sat up a little straighter as he gestured back to the shelf with the sweet jar upon it.

"It's a shelf where we put stuff when they're ready for the shop." He explained. I nodded nervously. Somehow, without anything to have happened, the tension in the room seemed to have doubled – no, tripled.

I decided to bring up a point from earlier.

"Umm, Fred?" he looked up at me as he was sitting on the floor and I was sitting on the sofa.

"You know when we were discussing my parents?" he nodded but his expression remained confused.

"Well, I was just thinking, how are we going to tell them? About this I mean." I pointed between us. "Us. Engaged. And the whole marriage law thing. They won't exactly be happy." I paused.

"They don't realise what it means to me. Magic, I mean." I sniffed and Fred slowly stood up from the floor to perch on the arm of the sofa. He wrapped a comforting arm around my body.

"It's just that they won't be quite the same when I give them back their memories. If I find them. They probably will encourage me to just give up my magic." He nodded in understanding and squeezed my shoulder tightly. I smiled up at him and he returned the gesture. Slowly, but surely, he leant forwards, stopping when his lips were tantalisingly an inch away from my face.

I could feel his breath as he exhaled, and it was like a cool breeze drifting over my skin. I inhaled his musky scent and locked eyes with him.

His eyebrows rose at our close proximity to each other, but neither of us moved. His face tilted softly backwards and he swiftly, but softly, kissed me sweetly on my forehead. His lips lingered there for a few seconds, and I felt my skin burning where his mouth touched me.

What **did** this boy do to me?


	9. Twins will be Twins

**A/N :Does anyone want me to do more Fred PoV chapters? I feel like its Hermione's story now!**

**Also, I only got 4 reviews for my last chapter – and I updated quickly... :( **** They were great reviews though! Thank you 93 Diagon Alley, narniaandharrypotter4ever, brightnight98 and Guest (I don't know your name) ! :D  
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**Please review!  
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Disclaimer – I realise I haven't done these yet so this is for the entire story – future and past – I do NOT own this story. It is all of J.K Rowling's wonderful ideas.

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**Fred PoV**

I let myself into the flat, strode over to my room, and collapsed on my bed.

"Uugh." I groaned, covering up my face with my hands.

Why had I kissed Granger? I mean, Hermione. I know that it was only a simple peck on the forehead, but now she would think that it was weird! She wouldn't have felt the sparks I did, or that time had slowed down to that perfect moment where my lips were touching her skin. She just thought of me as twin 2, prankster.

It was odd though, that yesterday I had no idea of my heritage, and didn't think about Hermione as more then my little brother's pretty best friend. Yes, I did think that she was pretty then too – stunning really. Who could resist those full-of-life locks of chestnut hair and beautiful chocolate eyes?

Now however, I couldn't stop thinking about her. She was on my every thought. I almost wished that I hadn't been told about this whole vela thing, but then again, I didn't want any secrets being kept from me.

I rolled onto my back and looked up at my ceiling. I'd bewitched it to display the stars and constellations of the sky in full clarification. Whenever I was upset, I just looked at this and I calmed down.

I sighed as I took a deep breath. I slowly got up and made my way to the kitchen. Hermione had left shortly after the kiss, with a red blush that I loved covering her face, so now I was only cooking for myself and George when he came home.

I didn't have to wait long, as not 5 minutes after I had started cooking did the familiar voice of my twin call into the flat.

"Honey, I'm home!" he warbled, drawing out the honey. He stuck his head around the doorframe of the kitchen and beamed when he saw that I was cooking.

"Thought you were going to live at Angie's now?" I smirked. He shrugged.

"Yeah, but I just love my brother so much!" he exclaimed, wrapping me in a tight bear-hug. I managed to extract myself and rolled my eyes at him.

"Whatever Georgie, we just know that your nose has a food radar that calls you here whenever I'm cooking." He grinned again.

"Too right it does!" he abolished before engulfing me in a hug again. I barely succeeded in getting out of his impossibly tight hug before my breathing was cut off.

I rubbed my now throbbing arms.

"Seriously George?" I questioned. "What's with all the hugging?"

"No, my name is just George." He joked, before seeing my steely glare. He gulped. "Apparently that joke is very old now." He mumbled.

"Yes George, like back to the marauder's time old. Now what's with all the hugging?" I poked him playfully "Something got my little brother in a good mood?" he scowled at me for the little brother thing before it was overtaken with an ear-splitting grin.

"Not really anything in particular." He told me, "I'm just so happy about life!"

"Trust you to be so bloody optimistic about everything." I muttered under my breath, but George just continued on as though he hadn't heard me. I managed to interrupt his flow of speech, fortunately. Who knows how long he would have warbled on about 'I'm so happy!' for?

"Hey!" I began with a sudden thought. "You'd never guess who I saw in Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour today?" he rolled his eyes.

"No, Fred, out of 7 billion people in the world I'm just going to be able to guess which person it was?" the sarcasm was really laying it on too thick.

"Well I met Granger, but she doesn't really count." Insert George's eye roll here.

"Only you would say that your fiancée doesn't count as a person."

"Oh yeah. Anyway, I saw Ron. Making out with Hannah Abbott. Like eating her face off snogging." George's nose wrinkled up at the same time as mine at that particular image of our little brother.

"Isn't he engaged to Susan Bones, or something?" George was confused. I shrugged.

"Yeah, but I guess he wants to have as much of an experience as he can while he, well can." George shrugged and waved the topic away – we could always pick it up later. I looked at him suspiciously.

"Who are you and what have you done with my twin brother?" I accused. It was all so weird George never passed up a chance to tease Ron; I had practically given him gold in that sort of form. "Why are you so perky?"

My reaction was a grin. "I'm just really happy!" I groaned. Here we go again.

"I mean, I'm getting to married to Angie!" add a big grin here. "And I'm going to live with her!" another massive grin. "And Ginny finally got the guy she's wanted since before 1st year, "he frowned a little. "Remind me that we need to have the twin talk with him."

George and I had perfected the intimidating 'twin talk' in 2nd year, and we'd modified it so that we could use it on all of Ginny's future boyfriends. We hadn't used it on Harry yet, but we felt like his turn was well overdue.

"Everyone is perfectly matched!" I resisted the urge to scowl at my favourite sibling. Perfectly matched? Hermione clearly didn't think so, even if she was my match.

"And you're a Veela – I mean, how cool is that?" he grinned, holding his hand up for a high five. I let it hang there, and he let it drop after a few seconds. I smiled evilly at him.

"You didn't seem to think so earlier when you thought I was a girl." His mouth opened and closed without anything coming out, making him look like a rather surprised goldfish.

"I – I'm –"

"You're an idiot, you twerp." I finished for him, smacking him not too lightly across the back of my head.

"Ouch, you plonker." George complained, clutching at the back of his head whilst looking at me with annoyance. "You know you're still holding that spoon in your hand, right?" I looked down at my hand and saw, sure enough, that he was correct. That was a first.

"Sorry mate." I apologised. I patted him on the back, making sure this time to hit him with the spoon. I turned back to the cooker to ignore his glare and instantly leaped towards it as I saw the smoke billowing from the pan.

I quickly grabbed the oven gloves from where they were hanging on the oven handle and slid them on before removing the burnt item from the heat. When it was safe, I turned to George who was looking at me with n overly innocent look on his face.

I didn't believe it for one second.

I advanced towards him, drawing my wand as he backed away into the corner.

"What did you do?" I threatened; half menacing, half joking I didn't think that he could tell that I was joking for his face had a petrified expression looking at me.

"What! What did I do?" he squeaked. "I just wanted some food!" I grinned before poking my wand into his chest. He gulped and I watched his Adam's apple move up and down. Or his George' apple, as he liked to call it.

"You distracted me with your over – optimism." I accused. George extracted himself from wand point, seeing now that it wasn't serious. He sauntered over to the kitchen counter and leant on it. He rested his head on a hand and looked at me with raised eyebrows before turning and heading towards his room.

"Going to change!" he called over his shoulder. "Don't follow me in to ogle at my hot body - I have a fiancée now!" silently, I sent a jelly-legs hex his way and muffled my laughter as he collapsed to the floor.

"Something wrong with your _hot_ body Georgie?" I asked innocently. He glared at me before muttering the counter-curse and pulled himself up by the armchair.

"Twat." He mumbled as he stumbled away from me. I turned back to the food I was supposed to be cooking and was satisfied when I heard a loud slam echo through the flat.

Good. I thought. Nothing like a good twin teasing session to get one's appetite up. He knew that he couldn't do anything to me – I was cooking him food after all.

George reappeared like a dart when he heard the sound of me pulling my chair out at the table. He not only had good smelling, but good hearing too. We weren't sure how that happened – he did only have one ear. My theory was that he just knew where all of the food in the world was at any time.

He bounded into the room, grabbing his toastie as he went.

"Thanks Freddie! Beans and cheese!" he grinned at me as he took a massive bite into his toasted sandwich.

"It has been your favourite for the last 15 years Georgie," I said patronizingly, "it's not that hard to remember!"

He sighed before finishing of his meal and smacking his lips. I raised an eyebrow at him and pointedly looked at my own unbitten sandwich.

"You need to make more next time." He said again – the phrase he said anytime I cooked anything. I swear he had hollow legs or something.

He ambled over to the door and grabbed the cloak that was hanging on the back of it.

"Where are you going?" I called from the kitchen. "You only just got here!" I heard his laugh before his ginger head appeared again.

"I _do_ have a social life, you know? Unlike some people." I gawked at him as the wrenched the door open and walked out to the landing. "I'm going to meet the guys." Were his last words before the door swung shut on him.

'The guys' were our group of close friends, including the girls. This consisted of us two, Lee, Angelina, Katie, Alicia and sometimes Oliver. It was basically our entire Quidditch team in our year and, apart for Oliver, we were all the same age. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna came along if we wanted it to be a bigger group, but they were normally by themselves.

I would have usually hounded George for rounding up the guys without telling me, but I didn't have the energy for it. I'd finished my dinner by then and wasn't really in the mood for drinks.

I dragged my weary body to the nearest armchair and lowered myself into it. I held out my hand and clenched it into a fist. I held it there tightly for a few seconds before opening it and picking the feather out of my hand. I grinned.

I blew at it lightly and watched it drift upwards. The orange feathers still managed to astound me. I'd managed to create several in the past few hours but they were still something amazing to me. I'd never thought that I would ever be able to just create feathers with my bare hands. Orange ones, no less.

I closed my fist again to make another one, and continued this process for the next 10 minutes until I was sure that I had over a hundred. I managed to levitate them all at the same time (it wasn't that they were heavy – there were just so many of them), and took them t my room to hide in my cupboard. I'd devised a plan to make at least a thousand before I gathered them all up and attacked George with them

He was extremely ticklish and I would be sure to make it happen at a Sunday lunch so the entire family could see him squirm. It was one of my favourite forms of blackmail – I had a different type for everybody.

* * *

Ron was by far the easiest, as all I had to do was produce a spider and he would freak out. On our birthday earlier in the year, George and I had invited him to the shop. We'd conjured all of our Pygmy Puffs to look and feel like spiders, and set them free. It was the best birthday trick ever, and we'd created our first form of blackmail.

George as the next one I had found out how to manipulate. I had been mercilessly tickling him one day when, in a burst of laughter, George had yelled out that he would do anything if I only took off the tickling charm. That had been easy to change into 'don't tell this or this', and that form of blackmail was born. The tickling charm had also given us a great new product idea – Tickling Treats.

Charlie was a little harder, but all I had to do was to visit him to find it out. I'd decided on popping in to surprise him in Romania as I was over there for a business meeting, and had walked in on an _interesting_ scene. Well, basically him snogging his fellow dragon-tamer girlfriend of over a year on the sofa. _Horizontally_. _That_ was a fun one. All I had to do was threaten to tell Mum.

Percy was simple. I would saunter into his office, confidently of course, and watch the curious look on his face change into a terrified look. I would reach my hand as close to the desk as I could, but he would always stop my hand with his wand and sternly tell me not to touch anything. I'd gotten within a quarter of metre before. It was easy to pretend to mess up his paperwork; just stand in front of his door with a pile of messy papers and a sheepish expression, look guilty and wait for the blood to drain from his face. Easy, really.

Bill was quite hard to do, as I didn't know what he was scared of. Therefore, I settled for the one thing we were all scared of – Mum. Yes, even thought we were grown men, we were all still scared of our Mum. I just had to bring up the subject of children, and look at Bill. Every time, he would roll his eyes and give in – anything for me not to tell Mum that Fleur was pregnant – which she wasn't.

Ginny was by far the hardest. My little sister was scared of nothing. Eventually, I just resorted to plain public-embarrassing. For a whole week, I trailed her around and made embarrassing comments about her. I even followed her to work. She caved in once I told Harry about how she used to have pictures of him stuck up on her bedroom walls, but did threaten to me that she would stick her wand somewhere where the sun didn't shine if I didn't 'shut it'. My lovely little sister people.

* * *

Of course, I didn't usually blackmail anyone out of the family, but I always had some back up plans to hand. I looked at the watch that I had received from Mum and Dad on my 17th. It was only 8 o'clock so I decided to visit Harry.

I apparated to his front steps – he was living at 12 Grimmauld Place for now – and knocked on the wooden door. I waited for a couple of minutes and a couple more knocks until finally the door swung open. I stepped in without looking at the person, and wiped my feet on the doormat.

"_Finally_ Harry, I thought you would never answer the door." I looked up to a dishevelled Ginny staring at me with hostile narrow eyes. See – lovely little sister. "Oh. It's you." I appraised, raking my eyes down her bedraggled appearance.

Her red vibrant hair was tousled and sticking up every which way; her shirt, which she was now trying to tug down, was riding up above her hip; her lips were swollen and red; but, more noticeably, was a big red bruise on the side of her neck.

I smirked. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" maybe blackmailing my sister was easier than I originally thought. I should've brought a camera.

"Why are you here?" she shot back. I stuck my tongue out at her and she narrowed her eyes accordingly.

"I came to talk to Harry. Why are you here? You don't live here." I reminded her evilly. She rolled her eyes at me and pulled on her coat.

"Not yet, anyway." Came the mumble as she pushed past me and walked down the steps into the street. She looked both ways and called back to me before disapperating. "He's all yours!"

I shrugged my shoulders and walked into the house. I entered the first door I came across and saw Harry nervously running his hand through his hair. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Um, hi Fred." He began sheepishly. My smirk grew – he looked so scared! I leant back against the doorframe and stared at him until he looked away uncomfortably, a blush forming on his cheeks.

"Well, you know why I'm here, right?" I question him. He nodded.

"Big-brother talk, hey?"

"Yup." I walked forwards to him and clapped him on the back. Hard. His knees buckled but he managed to stay upright – auror training does that to you, I guess. I grinned devilishly.

"Alright. Basically, I can't actually remember what I was going to say so we're just going to tell everyone that I scared the hell out of you, ok?" he looked surprised for a moment before he caught on and grinned.

"Great." He looked relieved for a second before I began my next sentence.

"But George and I will still have the twin talk with you." He blanched.

Why didn't I just blackmail _Harry_?


	10. Dates will be Made

**This is really random but I realised that Teddy Lupin was born in the same month as me! April '98 ;D**

**Personally, I think that having 99 followers is teasing ;)  
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**Also, for anyone who has doubts in this pairing (i.e. my sister!), just know that J.K. Rowling herself seriously considered pairing them together.**

**Hermione PoV**

I groaned at the alarm clock as I pulled myself out of bed. I hated Mondays. They were the worst day of the week by far. Not only did I have another 5 days to go until the next weekend, but all of my meetings were on Mondays.

Gathered my things, I headed along to the communal Weasley bathroom on the floor below. I yawned as I walked and stretched my arms. The one thing that I hated the most was waking up at 6 o'clock in the morning, but knowing if I didn't I would never get a turn in the bathroom.

I laid my clothes on the chair next to the sink and made sure my towel was hung up before I turned to lock the door. I used the usual Alohomora but also some extras that I had picked up since living here. Trust me; it wasn't fun to have someone bursting in on you halfway through changing. I thanked my lucky stars that it was only Ginny.

The shower automatically switched on as I flicked my wand at it and I stepped into the perfect heated water. The waves of water cascaded down my back and eased the tension of the last day. I gathered up my long hair in one hand and lathered it with shampoo then conditioner.

As soon as I stepped out of the shower I could hear someone knocking incessantly on the door.

"Hang on, hang on!" I called, hurriedly pulling on my jeans and t-shirt. I didn't bother to dry my hair, and just left it down and wet.

I wretched open the door to find out who had interrupted my early morning bathroom time and was greeted by a handsome ginger twin.

"Fred? What are you doing here?" I checked my watch. "At a quarter past 6 in the morning?" Fred grinned unabashedly and shrugged.

"Maybe I wanted to have some of Mum's wonderful breakfast." He paused for a moment. "Or maybe I wanted to see a certain bushy-haired bookworm." He winked at me.

"Yeah." I said sarcasticly, pushing past him on the way back to the twins' old room, where I had been staying. He followed behind me all the way back, as predicted.

I turned around as I began to shut the door in his face and sighed when I saw his massive grin.

"What now?" I asked, exasperated. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at me and I thought that I had an inkling of what he was going to say next.

"Couldn't wait that long to get in my bed, eh Granger?"

I kicked his foot out of the way where it was propping the door open. I said one last thing before I slammed the door in his surprised face.

"It's Hermione." And I promptly let the door swing shut. Turning around, pleased, I smirked and began to get ready for the day. I didn't have to go back to work as they had given me a week off to account for all of the overtime I did. It was only Monday, and I could see that I was going to become easily bored.

The Department of Mysteries wasn't one to offer time off the job, but I had been working there for a while now and I always overdid on the amount of work that was required. Also, they were bringing a new intern this week so he would be able to shoulder some of the work. Of course, if he didn't like the job, then he would be obliviated. That's Mysteries for you.

I darted around the room getting ready. I chose to wear a deep purple long-sleeved top that I knew went well with my hair (or at least Ginny thought that it did), and my favourite blue skinny jeans. My hair couldn't be tamed that morning so I just pulled it back into a messy bun.

I appraised my image in the mirror. I didn't think that I looked too bad – I wasn't dressing up, but I wasn't really going anywhere. A sigh escaped my mouth as I studied my face. Although my skin was clear and fresh now that I had grown out of the 'spotty stage', I was still as plain as ever. My eyes were a chocolate brown, and my lips were an ordinary pink colour. There wasn't really anything memorable about me.

The make-up bag felt emptier as I picked it up, and I made a mental note to buy some more later. I had a feeling that Ginny had been borrowing my green eye shadow and my eyeliner, but I didn't really mind. They looked better on her anyway.

After I had finished applying my simple layers of mascara, eyeliner and eye shadow, I dabbed on a little lip gloss and skipped out of the room for breakfast. I checked the clock as I went – 7 o'clock. Perfect time for breakfast.

Although I wasn't at work, I still felt like I needed to look nice and get up promptly. It was guaranteed that by the end of the week I would have been used to having lie-ins, and would then find it really hard to get up for work. The human body is weird sometimes.

Molly – she had insisted that I called her that – was standing by the stove cooking what smelt like some delicious pancakes. Fred, as far as I could see, was the only one that was there yet. Even the people who had work weren't down yet. Then I remembered that not everyone had to be in work by seven- thirty, like me. Most people had normal 9 – 5 working hours.

"Hermione!" Molly scolded me. "You shouldn't be up at this time! You've got a week off! Enjoy it! Lie in!" she waved the wooden spoon that she was holding in her right hand around as she did. Fred cowered as he dodged her accidental blows.

"Hey! Watch it Mum!" he came to sit down at the end of the table instead, giving up on trying to help his mum cook.

"Hey." I smiled as I sat down next to him.

"Hi." He said softly.

We smiled shyly at each other before tucking into our plates of food. They were piled high with bacon, eggs, sausages, pancakes and, for some reason, custard. I managed to eat all of the food but left the custard. Sitting back, I rubbed my full stomach and thanked my lucky stars that I had been wearing my elastic-waisted jeans that day. Molly really did feed us too much. She was forever telling me that I 'looked too skinny' and needed 'more meat on my bones'. Personally, I thought that I was fine, but that was Molly.

Fred next to me grinned and patted his flat stomach. Honestly, I didn't know where he put it all. He was still toned from playing Quidditch and I didn't know where he put all of the food. He was just used to it, I guessed.

"Still not a true Weasley yet, hey Granger?" I smirked at him.

"Yeah, but not for long!" his face paled and I grinned at him. "I'll be a new Mrs Weasley in less than 6 months! Well, there will be 4 more actually. And a Mrs Potter." He gulped, and I saw his Adam's apple bob up then down. For once he was speechless. He had nothing to say.

"Um, yeah." He looked down to his empty plate again and then we locked eyes. The intensity increased a tenfold, and I felt myself unable to pull away.

A door slammed somewhere upstairs and Ginny skipped into the room, Harry in tow. I wrenched my eyes away from Fred's deep blue ones to look at them. What was it with all of the people _not actually living here_? She plopped herself down in the seat opposite to me, and Harry took the one facing Fred. He smiled at us in greeting, but Ginny launched into a full blown lecture.

"So, we were thinking that we would have a wedding a month? On a weekend? Percy, because he's been engaged the longest, will go first. Then George, Harry and I, Ron and you two can go last. I know you two have known each other longer than Ron has known his match, but I think that for you two it'll be a little weirder. You guys can marry on the 6th month, okay?

Percy will marry in 2 months, right? That'll give Mum and I time to plan it." Finally, she paused for breath (I don't know how she didn't need to breathe earlier), and Fred took the chance to butt in.

"Wait, on the 6th month? Don't we have to be married before the 6th months?" Ginny smiled at him.

"Dear brother, obviously you haven't been listening to Hermione, have you? You can get married on the day, you know." She shook her head at Harry exasperatedly. "Honestly."

Molly came bustling back into the room from where she had been cooking yet more food and handed the newcomers an overflowing plate each. Harry sighed and began to tuck in. He knew, like me, that if he didn't start eating as soon as possible then he would never get finished. Ginny however, had the luxury of being able to eat any amount of food in less than a nanosecond.

As I jumped up to leave the table, partially to avoid Ginny nattering on about wedding and what not, Fred slipped a small package into my pocket. I didn't acknowledge it apart from with a small smile towards him.

I swept out of the room and I made my way upstairs to the room. On my way up, I passed Percy and Audrey entering through the front door, and Charlie coming down the stairs. I shot a smile in each direction. I also heard the distinct popping sound of apparition and the floo igniting, and I assumed that it was Bill and Fleur, and George and Angelina.

I passed my room and walked up the rickety stairs to hammer on Ron's door.

"Ron!" I hollered through the thick wood. "Wake up, get dressed and go and get Susan from her house. There's a family meeting." Or so I assumed so. "The letters are going to arrive today, so we need to pretend that we got them today too." I gave up on waking him up for now and turned to head back downstairs.

Before I had fully gone out of earshot however, I heard the door squeak open. I looked around totalk to Ron more, but was shocked to see a girl coming out of Ron's room.

She had long, light blonde hair that hung near her waist in soft ringlets, and her skin was rosy. I faintly recognised her as a Ravenclaw from our year back in school, and then it clicked.

"Mandy? Mandy Brocklehurst? Is that you?" I stepped closer and it confirmed my queries. "Whatever are you doing here?"

Then Ron slipped out of the door. Clearly he was surprised to see me still there, as the tips of his ears turned red as they did whenever he was embarrassed.

My eyebrows rose and I crossed my arms but I said nothing. He shifted from foot to foot before nodding to Mandy curtly and disappearing down the stairs. I turned back to the sniffling girl and put my arm around her.

"Are you alright?" I asked gently. "Do you need help getting home?" she shook her head shakily. "Don't worry about Ron. He's not usually like this. He's just stressed about – well, he's just stressed. He'll get back to his dim-witted self soon enough, don't you worry." I smiled at her reassuringly and she returned it with a shy one.

She kindly ducked out from underneath my arm and fished around in the bag I hadn't noticed she'd been carrying. She withdrew her wand and gave me a quick one armed hug.

"Thank you, Hermione. You always were nice." She softly smiled at me before turning on the spot and disapperating. I decided not to tell anyone about this little thing and headed back down to my room.

I got there this time and closed the door behind me. I sat down on the bed and pulled the now slightly squashed packet out of my pocket. I gingerly unwrapped it and pulled out a card packet. It was a chocolate frog and there was a small note attached.

_1._ _First, the classic._

I smiled at the simple note and attempted to prise the box open. It really was harder work than it looked.

The box sprung open in my hands and I caught the frog before it ran away. I held the squirming frog in one hand while I looked at the card in the other. It was no one other than myself. In the picture, I was grinning and waving up at myself, my bushy curls flying everywhere. I wished that I'd learnt the secret of taming my hair back then when the picture was taken.

The inscription read, '_Hermione Granger is world renounced for being part of the Golden Trio that hunted for Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort. She is also known for getting past the Philosopher's Stone's protection enchantments in her first year; working out the clues to the Chamber of Secrets in second year; saving mistaken non-criminal Sirius Black from a fate worse than death in third year; coaching Harry Potter through the Triwizard Tournament in forth year; being part of the group in the fight of the Ministry in her fifth year; being part of the fight o the First Battle of Hogwarts in her sixth year; and fighting in the Second Battle of Hogwarts. She is well known as being the best friends of Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, and her work has given House-Eves and Goblins new rights, having founded S.P.E.W._

I suppressed a groan. They really had exaggerated what I had done – most of this was all Harry. I had coached him in the Triwizard Tournament? I snorted. Yeah right; I was just trying to make Ron and Harry not do something they're regret. They were making out that I'd done something amazing every years – that was only Harry. Actually, I was surprised they could fit on all of that information about me on the small card. Although, I did peer closer, and I saw that the text scrolled down when you read it, and then shrunk so it could all fit on. Clever magic, really. I did pocket the small purple card thought.

The frog was getting sticky and was melting in my hand so I just shoved it in my moth all at once, not bothering to try and savour the 'goodness'. Instantly, I regretted my brash decision. It was sickly sweet in my mouth, and it stuck to my tongue. As soon as I swallowed it, I felt bloated and full. In some ways, I felt full and satisfied, but in other ways I just felt sick. I could see why others liked it, but it was just way too sweet for me.

I danced downstairs to grab a glass of water and gulped it down to wash the taste out of my mouth. Fred waltzed into the room and raised his eyebrows at me and I placed the now empty glass on the surface.

"Trying to drown yourself?" he joked.

"No, just trying to wash this chocolaty taste out of my mouth." His face fell.

"Didn't you like it?"

"Ugh, no. Much too sweet." I wrinkled my nose up in distaste and a brief frown crossed Fred's face. He held hi palm up towards himself as I he was reading something off it, and ticked it with an imaginary pen.

"Not sweet..." he muttered to himself. I stuck my tongue out at him and leant back against the counter. I cleared my throat and he looked up at me with a playful grin on his handsome face. Wait – did I just think _handsome_? These marriage thoughts were really getting to me.

I gulped and cleared my throat again. "I need to talk to you." I told him. He raised a single red eyebrow at me and gestured between us. He placed a mock confused look on his face.

"I thought that was what we were doing?" I made to swat him on the chest but he backed out of my way. I huffed and crossed my arm over my chest. I waited for him to let me talk. "Oh. Yeah, right. Continue my lady." He bowed in an extravagant, sweeping his hand out. I giggled at his silliness.

"Anyway. I had a proposition to make. I think we should try to get to know each other better. We barely talked when we were at school together, and we've only really had a handful of proper conversations."

"And? I'm assuming there is something else?"

"Yes. There is. I think that we should go on a date." His eyes widened almost comically. "I mean, we are getting married in 6 months. I think that we should just get to know each other better. Then it'll be less awkward when we – you know." He smiled.

"That's a great idea! Are you free tonight?"

"Um, I guess. I don't have anything all day actually. But can I just ask one little favour?" he nodded. "Can I plan the date?" he smirked at me.

"I should've guessed. Gra-Hermione wants to plan our first date. Isn't that supposed to be the man's job?" my eyes narrowed almost automatically. He held his hands up in surrender.

"Alright! Alright! You can plan the date! But the shop doesn't close 'till 5 o'clock on Mondays. Is quarter past alright?" I smiled and nodded. Now I had something to look forward to.

"Great! It's a date."


	11. Trips will be taken

**Just wanted to say to everyone reading this, especially my followers, favouriters and reviews - thank you! It means a lot to me :)  
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** Did you know that Voldemort is pronounced without the 't'?  
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**Hermione PoV**

I should have known that dates are harder to plan for than I thought. After all, I had only had a few hours to arrange it. It should be easy – you pick a place and go there. But _nooo_, you have to make all of the reservations and cook food and then – the outfit! Also, Ginny had really got to me on the clothes front. Not as in 'annoying' just as in I was not wearing her chosen outfit. It wasn't too bad really.

First, she had me in a ridiculous sparkly silver spangle dress that barely covered my derrière. It was stupid. However, once I complied to telling her what my plans for the date entitled, she had allocated me a little leg room. Now, I at least didn't have to wear anything with a skirt.

This only problem was that she now saw it in herself to dress me in something almost as bad – but I thankfully managed to convince her out of the green chinos.

I stood in front of the mirror and appraised my reflection. She'd dressed me up in a pair of short, _short_ black shorts and had made me tuck a thin light blue vest top into it. Then, she had artistically placed a batwing top over that and had added a thin brown belt to tie in the look.

My feet we encased in small brown ankle boots with 3 inch heels. I was just relieved that she hadn't gone any higher – I had seen some shoes of hers with 6 inch heels. Although, as she kept telling me, I wasn't actually going to be wearing the shoes half the time.

My hair was left to hang over my shoulders, but with our combine efforts we tamed it enough so that it just looked like soft wavy curls. I had to admit, Ginny's fashion style was pretty good – most of the time.

My favourite piece of the whole ensemble was definitely my top. It was bewitched to show the sky outside, so currently it was displaying white clouds and beaming sunshine. Occasionally, a flock of birds would pass over the shirt. I'd seen it last night at sunset, and it was absolutely stunning. I'd practically told Ginny to buy it, with the threat of a jelly-legs curse there if she didn't. Suffice to say, she bought it.

I paused half way out of the room to tug down my shorts. Why couldn't they be tincy bit longer! Sighing, I picked up my matt black bag and readied myself for apparation. I'd lingered here long enough. Fred would be waiting for me. I checked my watch again. Exactly quarter past.

I felt the usual compressing feeling like bars on my chest as I spun, and I gasped when I landed on his front doorstep. Straightening my clothes and adjusting my hair, I tentatively knocked on the orange door. Within seconds, it was flung open and a beaming Fred was standing in its place.

He was wearing casual dark blue jeans and a dark blue shirt on which the sleeves were rolled up - he looked great.

"Are we ready to go then?" he asked, drawing my eyes from his body.

"Um, yeah." I stuttered. Real attractive quality, stuttering is. I shuffled my feet. "I'm going to need to use side-along apparation because you don't know where you're going."

"Sure!" he agreed enthusiastically. He stepped down from his position above me and linked my arm with his. "When you're ready, m'lady." he bowed, still holding onto my arm and therefore half-dragging me down with him.

"Oops." he propped me upright again. "Now I'm ready." I raised my eyebrows at him. "I'm sure. 80% sure." I figured that this was the best that I was going to get, rolled my eyes, and turned on the spot.

I staggered but managed to stay off the ground. That was saying better than Fred. He was lying spread-eagled on the floor. I giggled at him and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"Sorry. I shouldn't be laughing. We did apparate a rather long way." I paused to help him up. "You did say you were 80% ready." I reminded him.

"Yeah," he grumbled. "That 20% was clearly dominating." he checked himself over. "At least I didn't get splinched! Where are we?" Giggling mischievously, I took his hand and pulled him out of the dark alley. The hustle and bustle of the street we arrived in was enough to shut him up.

His eyes were wide as he took in the whole splendour of one of London's main streets. I had to drag him just to get him moving.

"This, is London."

By the time we got to the tube station, Fred had managed to embarrass us more times than I could count. No matter what I told him about going along with it, he still felt the need to ask silly questions, drawing us curious stares. If only his voice wasn't so loud.

"What's that?" he asked yet again, pointing to a large box in the corner. I steered him towards it so he could get a better look.

"That's a vending machine. You put money in the side, and tell it what you want. Then it comes out the bottom." he looked it over and then turned to me, his eye imploring.

"Alright," I gave in and dug around in my bag. Managing to extract some coins from the depth of my purse, I handed them to Fred. I would need to get some more money soon, and I wasn't sure how Fred would react to those automatic machines.

Fred slotted in the money and looked the products over.

"Aero chocolate please." he told it. Sighing, I pushed in the buttons and the bar of chocolate fell into the bottom. I knelt down to pick it up, and handed it to him. I pulled him away from the amused stares of passer-bys.

"You're supposed to type the code for the sweet in." I whispered into his ear. Then I drew back. "Anyway, don't you know enough about muggle things? You were going down to Ottery St Catchpole all of the time when we were at the Burrow."

"We didn't really look around -we were just chatting up girls. Anyway, only like 200 people lived in that tiny village. Nothing like the millions that live here! It's so confusing!" he threw his hands up in the air to prove his point.

Leading him over to the ticket barriers, I gave him the spare Oyster card I always had on me – it was my dad's old one. "Here. Just swipe this over the pad at the top and walk through" I pushed him forwards into the throng a little. "Go on!"

I nodded encouragingly at him and he nodded before disappearing through the crowd. Immediately I began to push after him but when I got through he was nowhere to be found.

"Fred?" I called, worried. How would he find his way out of here? There were way too many muggles to safely apparate. He had bright red hair –how could I lose him? "Fred?"

Suddenly he was by my side, and I clutched tightly at his arm so we would not be separated again.

"Careful there Granger. You might lose someone." he chuckled, and I swatted him on the arm.

I leant against his body as we descended down the escalator to the platform and sighed. He broke the silence when we got onto the platform.

"So where are you taking me?" I smirked and tapped my nose.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out." he huffed.

"But why couldn't we apparate there?" he persisted.

"I thought that you could get to know muggle things a little better. Also, when you go somewhere and actually look around as you do so, the world is your oyster!" now he just looked confused.

"Oyster, as in these things?" he questioned, holding up the card I had given him earlier.

"It's a muggle saying. Don't worry." I patted his arm reassuringly. We made it to the platform just as the next train was coming in.

"What's that?" he asked. His voice was filled with horror.

"That's a tube. It's a sort of train. We're going to be travelling in it to get to our next stop." he took a step back away from the noise as everyone else pushed forwards.

"But it's nothing like the Hogwarts' Express!" he cried.

"Shhhh!" I hushed him. "Not so loud. It's just faster and smaller so it can go underground. That's why it's so noisy." he nodded once to show his understanding. After a few moments of silence again I prodded him.

"Are we going to get on?" he snapped out of his distant world and grinned down at me, back to the normal Fred it was used to.

"Sure." he replied cockily - he was back to his normal self. "You didn't think I was scared, did you?" we stepped into the bus train together and shuffled towards the middle so that we could hold onto the bar. I'd only just touched the cool metal when the doors slid shut and the train lurched to a start. I stumbled into Fred, but he just wrapped his arm around me and winked, before continuing to look around at his surroundings again.

I wasn't really surprised about the sparks that flew when he touched me now – it was more of a comforting feeling. However, I wasn't sure what it meant. I read many romantic books where 'sparks fly' and then fall in love at first sight. That couldn't happen to us, though – we met years ago! The sparks thing though, was something else.

The train jerked to a stop again and I squished into Fred to let a woman past. He gripped me tighter and our eyes locked. Yet again, I felt like we were in our own world and that nothing else mattered. His blue eyes captivated me, seemingly drawing me in. I couldn't seem to tear my eyes away from him, nor did I even want to.

We were broken out of our moment when I was rudely shoved into Fred. I scowled at the boy who had pushed me, and he just smirked back as he walked off. The train started up again and I looked up at Fred, suddenly realising the predicament we were in.

I took a small step back in the confined space we had and he dropped his arm away from me. I instantly missed it. Our smiles were both shy and tentative but neither of us said a word until a few stops later.

"I'm assuming you're going to tell me when we can get off." Fred confirmed, an amused sparkle in his eyes. I decided to mess with him. I glanced up at the tube map and made my eyes widen. I swung them around to the electronic announcement displaying our next stop and quietly groaned. Fred's smile dropped.

"What? What is it?" he hand came to touch my arm almost instantly. I looked silently at him with big eyes and muttered my words as sorrowfully as I could.

"I think we've missed our stop. I'm sorry." I looked away from him at the floor then, but he pulled my chin up so I was forced to stare into his eyes.

"It's okay. It wasn't you fault. We can just get off at the next stop and go back, right?" I shrugged miserably.

"Probably. But it cost more money and I think that there are mechanical works being done on the line anyway." I sighed again, and he leaned closer to whisper in my ear. My heart almost stopped.

"Can't we – can't we apparate?" he breathed. His breath blew onto the side of my face and I shivered. His being that close was really doing things to my body that I'd never encountered before. When had I ever been flustered by a boy before?

I took a deep breath in before letting a wide grin spread over my face.

"And you all thought that I wasn't a good actor!" The doors pinged open just at that moment - perfect timing – and I dragged Fred out. He was still looking very befuddled.

I let go of his hand and danced through the barriers. I was in a great mood – something I would never had expected on a date with Fred Weasley. I probably would've expected him to prank me.

"Come on." I called behind me to where Fred was hurrying to keep up. "We're still got to catch a bus!" I dated back to grab his hand and we emerged into the streets, the night slightly darker than when we entered. My shirt matched it exactly.

We walked around the corner and reached the bus stop with plenty of time to spare.

"Why couldn't we have got the tude?" he asked.

"Tube," I corrected gently. "And it doesn't go in the direction I want to go. I don't really feel like walking." I stood up and stretched, reaching down to touch my toes. I hadn't been able to do that until last year – I stretched every night until I could. Now I did it whenever I could.

"Anyway, shouldn't you learn a bit more about muggle transport?" I winked at him. He protested weakly.

"I know what brusses look like!" I didn't bother to correct him this time. "They're like the Knight Bus, but smaller and normally white-ish. And they have still adverts all over the sides."

"Yeah." I confirmed, standing up as I heard the tell-tale signs of a heavy vehicle approaching around the corner. "But this is a London bus."

The red double-decker bus came muscling around the corner towards us, and as Fred stepped back I stepped forwards and held my arm out. I felt his arm encircle my wrist as he tried to tug me back.

"What are you doing? That thing might hit you!" I dropped my arm and smiled at him.

"Don't worry. I was only signalling it." comprehension drew on his face as the bus drew to a halt in front of us. I stepped up to the driver.

"Two tickets to Bloomsbury please." I requested. I quickly handed over the money and gave a ticket to Fred. He promptly walked up the stairs and I followed him as he sat at the front.

"This isn't anything like the ones in the village back home." he mused after a while. "They're bigger, and red."

I hummed in agreement, and then turned towards him as an idea popped into my head.

"We've got a while, so why don't we play 20 questions? We'll take turns."

"Alright," he agreed, turning towards me too so we were sitting face to face. "You go first."

I thought for a moment and asked the simplest question ever. "What is your favourite colour?"

He smirked."Orange."

I sighed. "Should've known." I muttered. "Your turn."

"Okay then. What's yours?"

"Aqua. Or turquoise. I'm not really sure. They're both colours of the sea, and I love the sea. It's so powerful and beautiful." Fred whispered something so softy that I didn't actually hear the words. I leant forwards.

"Pardon?" I said as he blushed – he probably hadn't realised I'd heard him.

"Nothing." he replied, so I shrugged it off.

"Favourite subject?" I asked.

"Potions. I mean, Snape wasn't great, but potions really come in handy at the shop. You?"

"Err, transfiguration. McGonagall pushed me the most. Animal?"

"Hyena. You?"

"Otter. It's my patronus."

"Mine too! Well, the hyena." he exclaimed. I looked out of the window and saw only buildings and trees. We had a while to go yet. Bloomsbury was quite far from that particular station, and the traffic was heavy – as per usual in London.

"Favourite school year?" he pondered for a moment.

"First year. George and I were... innocent... for the first tiny part. And then we realised the joys a boarding school could bring to pranking. No mum and dad round, and nobody could escape. Nobody was really expecting it – Bill, Charlie and Percy had all been goody two shoes – Bill and Charlie had been prefects and everything." He cracked a large grin. "And then we came along. I've never had so many howlers in my life." he leant back against the window and relaxed.

"What's your... best childhood memory? Before Hogwarts."

I hesitated for not more than I second. I could remember the best day like it had been yesterday. My parents and I had simply gone out for the day in the summer before I came to Hogwarts. It was a beautifully clear sunny day, and we'd had a picnic by the sea. Later, all three of us had got into the water and had splashed each other. I think that it was my best memory of them. I told Fred all of this and he patted my back sympathetically. He knew just how much I missed them.

"What's the best prank someone has ever pulled on you?" I asked. I actually wanted to know the answer to this one.

He smirked at me. "The Weasley twins never get pranked." And that was his answer. "What is the most daring thing you've done?" I laughed. There were so many different things that I could say.

"I followed Harry into jumping onto a dragon's back once." I shrugged, like it was no big deal. He gawped at me.

"Really?"

"Yes really – how else do you think we escaped from Gringotts? Didn't you ever read the prophet?"

"Is that your question? Yes, I have read the Prophet before. Now who was your first crush at Hogwarts?" I grumbled a little but one look from his eyes forced me to answer.

"Oliver Wood." I shrunk down in my seat, not meeting his eyes.

"Oh." was all he said.

"What's your favourite Qudditch team?" I tried to hide my embarrassment.

"Puddlemere United." He leant closer and winked at me. "You know, the team _Oliver _is on?" I scowled at him but shrunk down in me seat even more - would the ground just swallow me up now?

"Your happiest memory."

"Seeing that Harry was still alive. You?"

"George waking up after he lost his ear." I smiled. That was really sweet. "What's your favourite food?"

"Sugar-free lollypops – it reminds me of home. And you?"

"Chocolate. Lots of it. Speaking of which, I have something for you." He pulled a rather squashed looking bar of 'Honeydukes' Finest Midnight Munch'. He held out half to me and I accepted it graciously. We both started eating it at the same time, chewing it in a comfortable silence. I swallowed my last piece to see Fred looking at me.

"Hmm." I contemplated. "Not bad. Better." He smiled and we continued with the questions.

"What's your favourite place?"

"This lovely little muggle bookshop in the heart of my town." I sighed in memory of the quaint little place I was so fond of. "I'll have to take you there sometime. What's your favourite place?"

"Our shop." He replied simply. "Favourite flower?"

"Daffodils. Sappy, I know, but they're just so – it's hard to explain – cheerful." He grinned at me.

"Nothing says happy like springtime."

"What has been your favourite holiday?" he didn't have to think as he answered immediately.

"Egypt. By far. The only family holiday we've ever had, really. What hobbies do you have?"

"I like to play the flute." I revealed. I'd never told anyone this before – most people thought that the flute was a very girly instrument. "What's your best Qudditch match?" he laughed loudly, causing the other members of the top deck of the bus to look at us warily.

"Definitely the one where Harry and George tired to kill Malfoy. I would've done it too, if the girls weren't holding me back." He cracked his knuckles threatingly. "Slimy little git. Pity we got banned, thought that never stopped us, did it?"

"I guess not."

"What is…. your favourite spell?"

"Waddiwasi. Lupin taught us it in third year." I sniffed as the picture of Lupin and Tonks, together still in death, floated to the front of my mind. I cleared my throat and hurried on with the questions.

"What's yours?" honestly, I could think of no original questions.

"Finite Incantatum. You have _no_idea how many times have had to use that when we do product testing. What is your favourite book?" He had me there.

"You got me." I admitted, "I don't have one. I can never choose." I smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Ummm – your favourite book – no! Kidding, kidding. Who is your favourite sibling?" He opened his mouth to answer. "Apart from George." I added.

"Oh. Well, Ginny then. She would hex me back to Merlin's time if I said anything different!" he grinned and shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how Harry's going to cope with her, but if there's anyone meant to be with my little sister, it's him." I rolled my eyes at him, but it was the truth.

"Okay then." He clapped his hands together as he tried to think of another question. "Okay. What is it like having two boys as your best friends?" I pondered this for a while, and then answered as best as I could. It was hard to explain, but I think that I said it okay. I'd been best friends with them for what felt my whole life, and I they helped to make me myself. I knew that Ron and I weren't exactly seeing eye to eye at the moment, but he would come around. I hoped.

"What is the longest time you and George have ever spent apart?" I asked. His answer was quick.

"A day, I think. He was invited over to Angelina's house – he left before I woke up and didn't come home until late the next day. That was when we realised that we needed to see each other at least once a day, just to keep us sane." He cracked a small smile at me, and then it turned mischievous.

"Where are we going?" I gasped in mock indignation.

"No! You're not allowed to ask that! And you've just wasted another question." I stuck my tongue out at him as he narrowed his eyes at me. I moved on.

"Who is the person who inspires you the most?" I thought that this was quite a good question.

"My mum. Not only does she look after all of us, but she is a kick-ass fighter! Did you hear her line when she went to fight Bellatrix? I don't think I'd ever loved her more." I grinned – the 'Not my daughter, you bitch!' line was a bit of a legend now.

"She really is great." I agreed. "And since I have an idea of what your next question will be. Mine is Harry."

"Okay. Yeah, that was my question."

"What do you want to do before you die?" I asked. His brow creased in thought.

"Jump out of an airy-o-plate like you showed me in those muggle pictures." He revealed. "Not that I want to die anytime soon!" giggling, I slapped him lightly over the head.

"And you said you thought they were stupid!" I grinned. "Your turn."

"Alright, don't abuse me woman!" but he was grinning too. "Err - have you ever hit someone?" I blushed furiously.

"Yeah," his eyes widened comically. "In third year - I slapped Malfoy." His beam stretched from ear to ear as he high-fived me and I found myself laughing too.

"Nice!" the bus stuttered to a halt again and I looked out of the window to check where we were. I hopped up immediately and clambered down the small stairs.

"Fred! This is our stop!" I called back to him. We rushed out of the vehicle, barely taking our time to say thank you to the driver in our haste to leave. We had arrived in front of a brightly signed building – the tube station. I mentally smacked myself upside the head.

"Look! There's a tupe station right there!"

I grinned wickedly. "I know. I lied." He grumbled and crossed his arm but I coaxed him out of it by promising him an extra question. I now had three left and he had four. We would use them later – if we remembered.

Fred gazed up at the bright building that was situated next to the tube station. It certainly was impressive. The neon lights that were naming the building were practically classic American.

"This is a small retro American place, but it's my favourite of the type. Only witches and wizards can get in on Monday nights – if you go in the right door. It's not that busy though, because not many people know about it. It's not magical at all though, and that's what I love about it."

Fred listened to me ramble on silently, and then stood aside as he gestured with one arm to the building.

"Lead the way."

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Sorry if I get some facts wrong - I haven't been to London in a while!


	12. Apologies will be Said

_Thanks for reading and reviewing guys! Please review if you haven't done so already _

_I need a Beta – does anyone want to do it? Hope you enjoy this chapter (I might add to it later today if I have more time).  
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_flutegirl98_

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**Ginny PoV**

1. The whole family and I had managed to pull off the greatest prank, ever!

2. Everyone is now getting married - the whole of the wizarding world would be full of couples.

3. I'M GETTING MARRIED TO HARRY POTTER!

Okay, okay, I know you're wondering about the first one, but personally, I think that the most important was the first one. Harry Potter was marrying me. Me! It's the one thing I've wished for since well before first year.

This is HARRY POTTER I'm talking about - you know, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, Undesirable No1, the Champion. Anyway, I should get back to the matter at present.

Reaching for my hairbrush, I pulled it through my tangled red tresses. I'd just come back from a quick Quidditch practice in the orchard, and I had been pushing myself further than before. I changed into my comfiest shorts and a tank top, ready to simply relax.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail with the hair band I always kept around my wrist and flicked my wand to_ accio_ my favorite book. Dancing downstairs I grabbed a glass of juice and wandered outside to the orchard. I stretched out on my stomach under a tree, and placed my book and glass next to me.

I was happy to be back at the Burrow – I was welcome here whenever I wanted but I hadn't visited recently. Harry and I were way too busy redecorating Grimmauld Palace to come at the moment.

I observed the sparse scattering of trees around the edge of the clearing ad smiled. There was the tree house, right behind the impromptu Quidditch hoops; there was the tall oak that Ron fell out of when he received his Hogwarts letter. And there was the tree where Bill and Charlie tricked Percy (who was only 9 at the time - Charlie and Bill were 13 and 15 respectively) to climb up to the top of. Needless to say, mum hadn't been pleased.

Softly, I smiled. There were such good memories here. I grabbed my book and opened it to a random page. I wasn't really reading, as I just liked the pretence. My eyes skimmed the page without even taking anything in. I couldn't even remember what it was about.

Flipping over onto my back I gazed up at the clear blue sky. My eyes drifted shut.

I awoke with a jerk as I felt something cool land on my head. _Plop_. There it was again. My eyes snapped open and I sat upright as the rain started to fall in larger droplets. I gathered my book and gulped my juice down as I dashed back to the Burrow.

I made it inside just as the heavens opened and let out a sigh of relief. At least my book was okay. Having said that, I glanced at it and groaned. It was sopping wet and dripping. I drew my wand from my pocket and muttered a hasty drying spell. It didn't do much good - I'd never been good at those household drying spells.

I tossed it aside, but near to the fire. I'd ask Hermione or mum to do it later.

Speaking of Hermione, I heard from the grapevine that she was going on a date with Fred. My prankster brother. I almost laughed at the thought. I wondered how long that would last without him pranking her.

I froze as I remembered the vital bit of information that had somehow slipped from my mind. They were getting _married_.

Then I did something I'm not exactly proud to admit. I freaked out.

Yes, as in I-have-to-do-everyone's-weddings-in-less-than-6-months-and-my-best-friend-will-now-become-related-to-me freaking out. Once I had calmed myself down sufficiently enough I flooed to Diagon Alley. There was a lot of work to do – things to arrange and buy. Thankfully, Diagon Alley had a _Meteolojinx Recanto_ spell that kept the rain from hitting the street. However, it didn't cover temperature or snow.

I paused in the busy street to observe a notice on the Quality Quidditch Supply's window. It was dark green but the gold writing made it stand out above the broomsticks. I leant closer to read it.

_Chaser needed for Holyhead Harpies. Tryouts at Holyhead Stadium, all day from 0800 Tuesday morning._

I checked the date in the smaller print of the poster and grinned. That was tomorrow. I wouldn't even have to take time off work, as I was still considered too young to have a 'proper' job. Just because I dropped out of school a year early to avoid the memories. It wasn't like I was learning anything new there anyway.

I pocketed one of the small tags and smiled to myself. I might as well try out for it – I had nothing else better to do. I'd always wanted to join a professional Quidditch team, and this was a perfect opportunity too. I wasn't sure how these processes worked, though – did I just turn up?

As the sun came out again I had made up my mind. Yes, I would go to the tryouts. However, I wouldn't tell anyone about it because of the reality that I probably wouldn't get in. I didn't want to get everyone's hopes up.

People bustled past me as I tried to make my way to the twins' shop, and then I realised why. The letters had come out today, so everyone was freaking out, just like I had earlier.

A shout made me turn around, and I glimpsed a spot of ginger hair as I searched the crowd for the caller.

"Gin!" they called again. I spun around as a hand clasped around my arm and I tried to wriggle out of its grasp. It let go at once, and I looked up to see a bemused Ron looking down at me.

"Are you alright?" he asked, having to talk loudly over the noise of the crowd. He pulled me to a small alley that sprouted off the main one and then turned to face me.

I grinned and leant in for a hug. We had become a lot closer since I'd started living at home again, and I was now quite used to his dopey ways. "I'm great," I told him, but my words we muffled by his thick coat. "How are you?"

He pulled back and we did our usual handshake. It consisted of many different steps, but my favourite one was the step that let me slap him in the face. Don't ask me how we came up with that.

"I'm… alright, I guess. Obviously not thrilled that I have to marry someone I don't know, but I've been making the last out of the day." He winked at me and I groaned.

"Not this again. You had it bad enough when Hermione told you that the kiss was just adrenaline." I rolled my eyes.

"Whatever." He dismissed me. "Do you know where Fred is? I need to apologise to him about earlier." He looked down at his feet and I pushed him gently into the wall.

"Silly boy." I told him. "But that was quite an impressive outburst, even by your standards." I nodded behind me and to the left, in the direction of the shop. His eyes showed his understanding. I latched onto his arm – mainly to prevent him from picking up more girls. "I'll come with you."

We left the alleyway in an amicable silence. The boy's shop was busier than ever when we entered, and I felt the familiar chill of the capacity spell recognising that we were family. Stepping up to the counter, I opted out of ringing the bell, instead choosing to use my voice.

"OI! FRED! Where are you?" I yelled in general to the whole shop. Not many people looked at me – they must've been used to my constant yelling by then. The red-headed twin in question soon popped up next to me. I jumped – I still wasn't used to that. Glancing next to me at Ron, I jerked my head towards Fred and raised my eyebrows suggestively.

He smiled weakly at me before stepping forward to talk to his brother. On his face was an expression I rarely saw – one of deep regret.

"Fred. I'm so sorry about yelling at you. I never meant any of the words I said and I'm honestly, so sorry. I guess I'm just still a little protective of her. I don't want to see her getting hurt." He was never one for long speeches, but his words were insincere. "Can you tell Hermione I'm sorry if you see her?" Fred nodded. "Thanks." Fred reached out and took his arm as he turned away.

"You know I'd never hurt her, right?" he clarified, looking into Ron's wide eyes. Ron nodded.

Fred waited for a few seconds before breaking into a wide grin and tucking Ron's head underneath his arm. Ron protested weakly, but let him do it anyway. Fred's fist ruffled his hair.

"Na, it's alright." He said. "I wasn't really mad at you in the first place." Ron was released from his grip, and Fred bounded off to help another customer. I turned to Ron.

"That went well." I told him. We grinned at each other. I led him out of the shop and we made our way to the Leaky Cauldron for a few drinks. It was customary for us to do this whenever we went out together.

"So, how's Teddy?" Ron had been looking after Teddy at least twice a week now while Harry was out on missions. Somehow, although they both had the same qualifications and mainly personalities, they never went on auror missions together. Maybe this _was_ because of their similarities.

Anyway, Teddy had been clamouring to see his 'Unca Won' every time I saw him. He would always attempt to tell me about his day with his favourite uncle. Harry and I had him at least 4 days a week, and we were acting as his substitute parents.

Andromeda had him any of the other days that we couldn't make it, but Ron loved having him the most, so he was there more than anyone but us.

"He's great!" Ron cooed. He was such a pansy when it came to Teddy. He would make a fantastic dad in the future. In the near future, that is.

"His hair is almost permanently purple now, but when he's upset it will always go blue. Odd, that way. He does all of these things sub-consciously, but I think he's getting to talking more. Everyone I meet thinks he's the most adorable baby ever! Of course, I have to keep him away from muggles." He told me all of the things I already knew about Teddy, but I let him.

"Wow. Anyone would think you were his mum." I smirked, and his face coloured red.

"Yeah, yeah." He scowled at me before continuing as if I'd never said a word. "He did show magic last week though." He revealed. I leant forward, and this time it was his turn to smirk. "You don't know this, huh." He grinned but he couldn't seem to keep it in. He began the story enthusiastically.

"So I was just sitting in my flat, and Teddy was crawling around, playing with my shoes – you know him." I nodded. Teddy had a strange fascination with shoes, and nobody knew how it had occurred. I had a suspicion it was something to do with Charlie training him when he last visited, though. Ron kept up with the tale.

"He was playing with all of my shoes, and I took off my slippers to give to him. They're his favourite, and mine too." Only Ron would have _slippers_. "He held them in his little hand, just looking at me, and then he gave them back to me. And here's the bad part. When he gave them back, one was _pink_, and the other was like 20 sizes too small. Teddy size. My favourite slippers!" he groaned as I giggled. I patted his arm softly.

"There there." I said through my laughter. "I'm sure they'll be okay. Just get Hermione to fix them for you. She's great at transfiguration." His face lit up and he beamed.

"Good idea!"

I shuffled closer and signalled for the bartender to top up our drinks. They were only small shots of butterbeer – a new version of drinking this beverage – so we wouldn't get drunk.

"Hey, how do you think our prank went yesterday? Believable?" I asked. Ron face was the vision of euphoria.

"Brilliant! We've been holding that one off for too long though. The family meeting didn't come soon enough." I shrugged, half in agreement.

"Yeah, you're right." I paused. "But it did give us a chance to rope Phlegm into it. I guess I shouldn't call her that anymore. She's pretty cool actually." He nodded, agreeing with me.

"She was good in that. What _I_ can't believe is mum become a part of it. I guess Fred and George did get their pranking genes from somewhere. Who came up with the idea? I want to personally thank them."

"George. He's wanted to get Fred forever. But a veela? How did he buy that?"

"That prank was amazing. Not only did we get Fred to believe that he's a veela, but Hermione doesn't know either. Do you think he's going to tell her?" Ron didn't answer immediately. I waved a hand in front of his face.

"Hullooo? Anyone in there?" I called. He jumped and turned to look at me with a funny look on his face. "What?" I demanded. "What!" I pushed him a little to get him to reply.

"Mate. Hermione isn't his mate, but Fred practically said he loved her." My hand flew up to cover my mouth as I gasped.

"No. I hadn't realised! Why does he love her? He loves her! Oh my Merlin!" I was warbling, and it took Ron sticking my drink in my face to get me to stop. I downed it in one swig and stood up.

"I need to go." I declared. "I need to clear my mind. I'm going for a walk." I grabbed my purse and backed away slowly. "I'll see you later!" I called as I turned and rushed out of the crowded pub.

I jogged around the corner and made my way up the small hill adorned with shops. I wracked my brain for a time when Fred had looked any differently around Hermione, but I couldn't really think of any.

He'd never once, at least in my memory, looked or acted around her any differently. I popped into a little antique store that I had a tendency to visit when I needed a little peace and quiet. The shop owner never bothered me, just let me browse.

I picked up an old horse pendant and a necklace that seemed to match it. I checked the price. Only 7 Sickles and 14 Knuts. Practically a bargain. The whole shop's supply was.

As I made my to the counter I picked up a few other trinkets – an otter charm for Hermione; a small hare broach for Luna, and a small flower for Fleur. It suited, really.

The whole lot equalled about a galleon and 12 sickles. Not too bad – I was just thankful that Harry had leant me some money until I got a job.

When I left the shop, I could see out of the corner of my eye a figure making their way towards me up the hill. They were staggering and clutching their side. With a sudden flash of light from his wand in the limp arm hanging from his side, I realised that it was Harry. I sprinted up to him.

What was he doing here? I'd seen him only a few minutes having a fire whiskey in the Leaky Cauldron with a few of his work friends. I'd left him be as I'd wanted some time with Ron. I didn't think he'd seen us. He wasn't on a mission. -what was he doing here, in this state?

"What's wrong?" I asked worriedly. I checked him over and I could see numerous patches of blood seeping through his cloak.

He was out of breath as he answered, and he was doubled over with pain. I wished again that I knew the spell for pain relief, and I again regretted not knowing more useful spells.

"Don't ask." he wheezed. "We haven't got the time." I stood there, unsure of what to do.

Why was he here? And back there? I was still so confused, but Harry was hurt. His emerald eyes were boring into mine, pleading for my help. I complied, and ducked under his arm to support him.

"Right." I said firmly. "First, we need to get you to a healer."

"No!" he protested, a wild look in his eyes. I was slightly taken aback by his outburst.

"And why not?" I demanded. I narrowed my eyes, as if daring him to challenge me in his state.

"We will go." he allowed. I smiled. "Later." I scowled again. "I just need to get back to the department of mysteries first. Now." Department of mysteries? What was he on about?

"Or what?" I grumbled, but I knew that he would win anyway. "You did teach me a pretty good bat bogey hex." he weakly smiled, but I could tell that he was in a great deal of pain.

"C'mon then." I allowed. "Let's get you out of here." I pulled him over to the side and checked him over again briefly before turning on the spot. We arrived dead in front of the massive doors that still sometimes haunted my nightmares and Harry walked right in.

I hurried behind him and closed the door behind us. We were in the circular room again, but Harry made his way towards the slightly agar one to our left. I followed him and we slipped through the opening.

We arrived in a bright, sterile white room that looked suspiciously like a science lab. We nodded at the three wizards sitting by their desks and exited that room through the door at the end of it. The next room looked more like a forgery, but this time four wizards rushed up to Harry and led him to a chair.

"Are you alright? No side-effects of the test?" they queried. One had his quill raised over a clipboard, and he was poised to make notes. Harry shook his head.

"No. Just bad timing."


	13. Feet will be Broken

_Firstly, sorry for the slow update! I've been away this weekend so it was a little bit of a rush, but I hope that hasn't decreased the quality of the whole thing._

_Secondly, I WENT TO THE HARRY POTTER STUDIOS! You can tell that I liked it, can't you? It was absolutely amazing, and everyone who loves Harry Potter should try and go there. It truly is amazing._

_Harry Potter fact of the week: **If you added up all of the man hours it took to create the scale model of Hogwarts that they used (and changed) for all of the films, it would add up to 74 years.**_

**Hermione PoV**

It was all going well, if I could say so myself. Fred was having a lot of fun chucking the bowling balls as hard as he could down the bowling alley, and I had bowled three strikes so far, which I was quite proud of. The room had emptied out quite a lot, and most of the other witches and wizards that were left were doing as badly as Fred.

The large, red magical scoreboard hovering above the alley showed that I was at the top of the leader board. I smirked as Fred made yet another blank score and picked up my usual ball as I again attempted to show him what to do.

Holding the ball in the fingers of my right hand and balancing it in the palm of my other, I showed him my stance and he copied me. This was where he usually went wrong.

I drew back my arm and flicked my wrist a little to get the ball spinning down the alley towards the pins. Fred watched as it slammed down all of the pins at once. He turned his large blue eyes on me and I couldn't help but melt a little. How could someone say no to that face?

"Fine." I gave up. "I'll bowl for you." His face transformed into a large beam and he pulled me into a crushing hug.

"Thanks Granger. I really want to beat that wizard over there with the scabby knees." He jerked his head to the side to indicate who he meant and I giggled.

The wizard in question was wearing bright green, just above knee length robes. This was accompanied by a tall hat of the same shade, and a pair of the most horrible fuchsia pink shoes I had ever seen. The fact that he was clearly well into his sixties was an added bonus to the whole fashion statement of the ensemble.

I looked covertly around for no reason, before picking up my ball again and gaining a strike for Fred. By next turn he would at least be above the bottom.

I high-fived him lightly, ignoring the sparks that tingled all of the way down to my toes. His score was better, but my score was now almost double the wizard's in second place.

Fred grabbed his navy ball in his left hand. I found out something new about him every day – fraternal twins often had opposite hand preferences, and George was right handed. It would make it easier to spot the difference between the two now, but Fred did tell me in confidence that both of them were mainly ambidextrous.

He pulled his arm back and then swung it forward and let go of the heavy ball. It thumped loudly down on the floor and then started crawling down the track. It was spinning wildly, but barely moving forwards, and I watched with amusement as it tumbled in to the gutter like the rest of his had done. So far, he'd only knocked one pin down.

I giggled into my hand and he mock glared at me as he tried again. His arm swung back, but this time flew backwards and landed painfully on my foot with a sickening crunch. The pain ripped up my leg and I held my foot as I hopped around on the other. Fred turned around in confusion to see where his bowling ball had gone, and his eyes widened as he saw me.

"Merlin's balls! Hermione, I'm so sorry!" I brushed of his apologies and lowered my foot. I attempted to put some weight on it, but with a yelp and another brief wave of agony I decided that it really was broken.

"Episkey!" I said, pointing my wand determinedly at my injured foot. Nothing happened. "Damn it!" I snarled, banishing my wand back my purse. Clearly, this was too much of a serious injury to be fixed by that simple spell.

Fred supported me by ducking under my arm and holding me up. He held me up as he frantically looked around the retro style room. Curious witches and wizards looked back at us.

"Is anyone here a Healer?" he asked. A witch in the back corner snorted.

"If we were, would we be here on our free nights?" I raised an eyebrow, confused. She shook her head at my apparent dimwittedness. "If I was a Healer, I wouldn't spend my free time in a bowling alley." She scoffed at me. "It's not exactly the place to relax or catch up on work." She looked scornfully at me and then winked at her date.

I tried to ignore the throbbing pain coursing through my foot. Fred's simple question hadn't been meant to turn into an argument. She leant forwards, as if to talk to me in secret, but her stage whisper carried over the whole room. Everyone else had quieted down, as if someone had silencio'ed them, and were all listening to our one-sided conversation.

"It's perfect for a date for one-nighters, though, hey?" she winked at me. Is that what she thought Fred and I were? Did she really think that I was in it for a one-night stand? Clearly she did, as she was fast approaching me. I resisted the strong urge to hex her into last week.

"You're Hermione Granger, right?" she confirmed. "You think you can get anyone you want, just because you defeated some old wizard. You didn't even kill him. You think that you can get a Weasley, because of who you are? Easy – I could get one." I narrowed my eyes at her, and made to step forwards, but Fred held me back.

"If you knew…" I growled, not even bothering to continue. I pulled my wand out again and pointed it at her throat. She was obviously one of the purebloods who weren't really involved in the war because of their high status in society. Did she not know what we had to do? What I had to give up? My _parents_ didn't know who I was.

I lowered my wand after a short whispered word from Fred, and leaned back into him, resting my weight on his body.

"I'm not going to hex you right now, because I don't have time to go to a formal hearing, but be sure that I would if I could." I snarled at her. This girl had really irked me. She smirked back at me – she knew that she'd won this round. Hopefully, I wouldn't be seeing her again anyway.

I craned my neck to look up at my ginger date.

"Let's go, shall we?" he mumbled into my ear. He was shaking slightly with anger and I fleetingly pondered for a split second whether he was capable of apparating us without any splinching.

This though was blown away as I shivered when his warm breath touched my sensitive skin, and I minutely nodded. A blush was quickly colouring my cheeks, but thankfully Fred didn't notice as just he held onto me tighter and apparated on the spot.

We stumbled as we hit the ground of the lobby of St Mungo's, and I winced as I felt pain flare up my foot. Unfortunately, I had accidently landed on it.

We walked – well, I hobbled, he half-carried me – to the front desk. I looked up at the sign hanging over the desk. There wasn't one for ordinary injuries and breakages.

The bored looked wizard raised his weary head as he saw our approach and straightened up as he saw me. I sighed as he smoothed his hair back and smiled charmingly. Fred kept his arm under my shoulders and together we made it to the front desk.

The front wizard took one quick glance at my swollen foot and ankle and flicked his wand once to call over a medi-witch. He told us the ward and floor in his usual monotone voice, but he eyed me with interest. I leant back a bit and, Fred noticing this took my hand in his and pulled me gently away.

A medi-witch came up to us, looked at my injury scrutinising, and then flicked her wand once. A temporary but secure wooden splint appeared on my food to keep it in shape, and she pushed a pair of crutches into my hand before hurrying off to treat another patient who had a cauldron stuck on his head.

I slowly made my way towards the lift, and Fred hovered near me, trying to make sure that I wouldn't fall.

"Why couldn't they just levitate me there?" I asked him curiously. He shrugged in return.

"I think it's because there are rules as to which spells are allowed here on patient – legal sues and all that. Also, I think that they're trying to work out the muggle methods." He began to explain it.

"It's about a big muggle study that Kingsley is making a new regime. Apparently muggles have some good ways of doing things. They've got much further than us, technology wise, because they don't have magic." By this time, we'd made our way to the lifts and we stopped to wait for one.

"Again, I'm so so **so **sorry for your foot, Hermione. I can't express how sorry I am. Really." The look on his face was so sincere and sorrowful that I couldn't help but forgive him. It wasn't like I was holding it against him, or anything.

I reached out to him and grasped his cool hand tightly in my own.

"Of course it's alright, Fred. It wasn't your fault." He smiled weakly but I could see that he wasn't entirely convinced. He would be apologising to me all week now.

The lift's brass doors pinged open and I shuffled inside.

A healer in smart work robes held out his hand as Fred tried to enter next to me.

"I'm sorry sir, but the hospital is quite busy at the moment. We're not allowing visitors in." Fred's face looked crestfallen, but he quickly covered it up with a big grin.

"It's okay, right Hermione?" he looked at me and I nodded. "Besides, it's not like we're engaged or anything?" he joked and winked at me. I watched the metallic doors and waved weakly to him, balancing my weight on the side of the lift.

"I'll meet you back here when your foot is fixed!" he called through the rapidly closing doors and I heard them shut with a clear snap. The lift ascended quickly through the building and I observed the other occupants of the lift to take my mind off of my painful foot.

On my right was an elderly man who was holding a detached arm out in front of him, and he had a similarly elderly medi-witch fussing over him.

"Joseph," she fussed. "Are you sure you're not ready to retire? This is the fourth time this week that you've been in here. We're going to start to get you your own room in here soon."

Directly in front of me was a young looking Healer, probably straight out of medi-school, who was shuffling papers frantically, while at least five paper airplane notes zoomed around his head. He was muttering incoherently to himself. All I could catch was 'fire-retardant', 'penguins', 'children' and 'burble-fish'. It sounded quite worrying.

Standing on my right, as far away as I could get from them, was a woman hiccupping fire. Yes, you heard me, hiccupping fire. Every time she exhaled, she would breathe out smoke, but every time she inhaled she made a sharp wheezy noise. The worst part was when she hiccupped though – fire actually came out of her nose, ears and mouth.

I stayed as far away from her as possible but I could still smell singed hair.

Taking a deep breath, I zoned myself out from the pain. After all, I'd had it a lot worse. My mind became clearer so I focused on the good things in my life. This often helped me to feel better and to disperse from my surroundings.

My thoughts instantly took over my mind, and I drifted out of the present. First, I thought of my two best friends, Harry and Ron. They'd been with me for over ten years of my life, and I wasn't sure what I would do if I lost them.

My mind zoomed back to first year, then second, then third, then the rest. We'd practically had an adventure every year, and that had brought me that much closer to the both of them.

Then I thought of Hogwarts, my home, my sanctuary for six fantastic years. I had been sad to leave the place I had practically grown up, but I knew that McGonagall would let me come back and visit anytime I wished to.

I thought about my parents and all of our happy memories together. I didn't know if the team of obliviators Kingsley had sent out for me would actually find my parents, let alone cure them. I had put an awfully strong memory charm on them after all.

The Weasleys came to mind and I internally smiled. They were like a family to me. Ginny was the sister that I'd never had and the best friend (who was a girl) that one could ask for, and Mr and Mrs Wea- no, Arthur and Molly were like substitute parents for me. They really were wonderful. Ron was my best friend, and the rest of them were like siblings to me. Well, apart from Fred.

Suddenly my track of thoughts jumped to him. His blue eyes, his kind face, his ginger hair. His words and looks filled my mind. I imagined his laugh that warmed me down to my toes, and I imagined his smile. I thought of his mouth in my mind, and I could see him leaning closer to me as I reached up on my tiptoes to close the distance between us.

A small tap on my shoulder made my eyes snap open and I started in my surroundings. I realised where I was and turned to see who had interrupted my thoughts. A new healer stood next to me, looking pointedly at the open doors of the lift.

"Um, excuse me miss? But don't you have to get off here?" he squeaked from his short form several inches below me.

I graciously nodded at him and thanked him before stepping back out into the bright halls of the hospital. I shook my head to get rid of any lingering thoughts of Fred.

I looked for a sign signalling to me as to where I should go as I limped down the light corridor. It had no people yet, but the sides of the halls were lined with the most famous healers of the last century. Nothing told me where to go so I made my way right to the end of the hallway to the desk at the end.

When I got here, it also appeared that it too was empty. What was it that the healer had said about the hospital being very busy? I spun slowly around, being wary of my bad foot, but I couldn't see anyone.

Down the corridor, a door swung open and I heard laughter coming from it. A plump medi-witch stepped out from the room, still laughing from a joke from inside the room. I started to make my way towards her.

She spotted me first.

"Oh dear! I'm so sorry I didn't notice you there." She patted me softly on the arm when she reached me and then proceeded to lead me down the corridor to another open door.

"You must forgive me. It's old Stephan's 70th birthday today. We made him some cake to celebrate Do you want some?" she suddenly offered, halting in the middle of the corridor and bringing me to a stop. She made to go back the way we had come before I looked pointedly at my bad foot.

"Oh." She led me back to a plush chair just inside the open room and sat me down. A healer sitting by the bed of another patient looked up interestedly for a moment, thus pausing her work. However, she soon lost interest and went back to casting spells over the unconscious patient.

The medi-witch crouched down next to me to get better access to my foot.

"Now," she warned, holding up her wand. "This may hurt a little." I braced myself for the pain but it was quick and I almost didn't notice it.

"There." She concluded, standing up and brushing imaginary dirt off her knees. "You've been good enough to not need a calming draught." He chuckled softly. "The amount of grown witches and wizards who freak out when they break bones…" she trailed off, muttering to herself.

"Just keep it off of the ground for a couple of days – keep those crutches – and you should be as right as owls in flight in no time. Just pop in if you have any issues."

"Thank you." I said. As hobbled away from the chair and towards the lift I heard a shout from behind me.

"Are you sure you don't want any cake?" she called. I turned slowly on the wobbly crutches to answer her.

"No, thank you. But thank you for the offer." She waved me off and disappeared back into Stephan's room where I heard more cheers and clapping.

The sparse lift was empty when I re-entered it, and it continued to stay that way until two stops before mine. The doors slid open, revealing a tall man around my age. He entered to stand beside me and I nodded at him once before reabsorbing myself in my thoughts.

"Granger? Hermione Granger? Is that you?" he said, turning towards me. I looked up at his tall frame and to my disbelief, the one boy apart from Ron and Krum who had shown any interest in me in school was standing there.

"McLaggen." I said. It was a statement, not a question. To say that I was pleased would say the least.

He smiled cockily at me. He seemed to have forgotten how I had avoided him like the plague at Slughorn's party. He stuck out a large hand that was calloused from playing keeper as a reserve for the Falmouth Falcons. No, I didn't keep tabs on my former 'boyfriends', but Ginny had told me.

"Please," he smirked. "Call me Cormac." I shook his hand quickly with the tips of my fingers, making as little contact with him as possible, and took a small step backwards, trying to avoid eye contact.

"Um… so, _Cormac_," I said awkwardly. "How are you? I hear you've joined the Falmouth Falcons."

He smirked again and shuffled slightly, regaining the space I had made between us. "Been watching me, have you Granger?" I narrowed my eyes slightly and craned my neck upwards to look him in the eyes. I could barely contain my anger – I had just broken my foot, and now here _he_ was.

"No."

"Are you sure?" he taunted. "Been following me and wishing that you hadn't left me now?" he said. I growled.

"No, _Cormac_, I have not." I was thoroughly annoyed now. "I have **not** been keeping tabs on you. In fact, I have absolutely no interest in Quidditch what-so-ever. I don't know what your deluded mind thinks, but you have definitely come to the wrong conclusion." I took a small step forward to back up my point.

"Now, now Granger, keep calm. No need to be rash." he slung his arm around me in an attempt to be friendly, drawing me closer to him. I shuddered internally, but I couldn't manage to throw his arm of.

Why were these two floors taking so long?

"So," He started again, absent-mindedly picking at his nails with one hand. My nose scrunched up. "Have you heard that I've got a girl from the Appleby Arrows?" he said, seemingly nonchalant.

"No." I said stiffly, speaking through my teeth. "I have not. That's very nice. Congratulations." His trademark smirk appeared on his face once again and I rolled my eyes. This went unnoticed by him.

"Jealous much, Granger? Don't worry, I still have room for you too. I'm sure you've heard of the concept of sharing? She doesn't have to find out." He winked at me. I pushed him away, truly grossed out now. His arm fell to the side with a slap.

"Firstly, ew. That is disgusting, and horrible. Secondly, there is only one person allowed to call me Granger." He flung his arm back around y shoulders and pulled me so tightly into his side that I couldn't wrestle my way out. Damn his keeper strength.

"Oh, yeah? And who's that then?" he grinned intimdtingly down at me as the doors finally opened.

I quickly searched through the crowd and found who I had been looking for. The familiar mop of red hair that belonged to Fred Weasley wasn't too far away from where we were standing. I could see his eyes darting around the room. They came to rest upon where we were still standing in the motionless lift.

My free arm rose to point him out to McLaggen.

"Him."


	14. Time will be Mysterious

**Firstly, I want to know what everyone thinks of the Veela situation – keep it or scrap it? I've had a couple of different views, so I'm interested to see what everyone else says.**

**Secondly, I'm writing a new part-time fic portraying all of the characters who died deaths. I've already written James, Lily, and the time when they first thought Peter was dead. Should I write more? Please let me know!**

**~flutegirl98  
**

_Harry Potter fact of the week: **Wizards and witches have a much longer life expectancy than muggles. Dumbledore is 150 years old and McGonagall is sprightly 70-years old.**_

* * *

**__****Disclaimer:** anything (characters, places etc) you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling / Bloomsbury / Scholastic / Warner Bros.

* * *

**Ginny PoV**

I got his meaning almost instantly.

"Bad _timing_?!" I cried, "Don't tell me you were doing something that involves travelling in time?"

He locked eyes with me, completely serious, all traces of sheepishness gone now. "You can't tell anyone." He told me. He reached out to clasp my hand in his. "Anyone." His emerald eyes burned into mine, and I nodded reluctantly.

I waved my wand and sat down in the small chair that I had conjured up. It wasn't very comfortable – again, I needed to work on that.

"If I'm not allowed to tell anyone, then give me something I'm not allowed to tell." I told him. I wasn't about to take no for an answer. He sighed resignedly. He could tell that that was coming.

He gestured to one of the wizards in the corner who was fiddling with what seemed to be a small necklace. He put it into his pocket as he approached us. The man looked to be in his early thirties, though it was hard to tell. He was dressed in a midnight dark robe, and he seemed to blend into the background whenever he stood still for too long.

"Disillusionment cloaks," Harry whispered into my ear. "Makes them hard to look at, doesn't it?" I nodded in agreement.

The wizard seemingly slunk out of the shadows to come and stand in front of the both of us. He didn't look so intimidating close up. He looked like an ordinary wizard, if you didn't look at the eye-straining robes.

He was of an average height, and his short hair was a striking dark brown. The square gasses he wore slipped down his nose, and he often had to push them up. His dark brown eyes were piercing behind them. I could see his shoes from the angle where I was sitting, and they were a worn leather type.

He was fairly well-built, but his skin was slightly pale from working in this bright, sparse room. I looked up at his face, and saw that his thin lips were pursed as he looked Harry up and down, examining him. Overall, he looked like a kind but intelligent man. He looked as if you couldn't get anything past him – just like McGonagall.

I shifted slightly at his side and his gazed slipped over to me. His eyes flicked back to Harry, and then to me again.

"Ah. So is this the famous Ginny Weasley?" he asked me, peering closer to see if it was me, as if he could not already tell by my flaming red hair. I nodded once, but didn't take my eyes off Harry.

He was still clearly bleeding heavily, as was shown by the red still seeping through his cloak. He had numerous scratches and deep cuts across his face and arms, and I could already see bruises blossoming on his face.

"Right. Nice to meet you." he shook my hand briefly and then turned to examine Harry. He frowned as he truly took him in underneath the brightened lights.

"Hm. Well, you seemed to have managed to get yourself hurt quite badly." he tutted as he waved his wand over Harry, using the usual spells to check his health. Holding his wand up to the light, he looked at it once before placing it in a small bucket full of an opaque pink liquid.

"Won't that make your wand sticky?" I asked curiously. He turned to talk to me as he stirred his wand around the small bucket.

"Actually, no. The fuyslid prevents that in this particular potion." I leant forwards interestedly.

"What is the potion for?"

"It's to diagnose his injuries." he jerked his head towards Harry. As I watched, he slowly pulled his wand out and tapped it three times on a nearby sheet of plain parchment.

"Diagnostium ovita." he murmured. Enthralled, I watched as letters seemed to flow out of the tip of his wand. They spread around the page, filling it and forming complicated patterns and sentences that I couldn't comprehend. I thanked Merlin that I wasn't trying to be a Healer – I'd never know how to make sense of all that information.

He glanced up at Harry, and then down at his paper again. He repeated this movement many more times – so much that I wanted to rip the paper out of his hands and try to heal Harry myself.

"Can't you just take him to St Mungos or something?" I asked desperately, after several frustrating minutes. The man looked at me gravelly, and I realised that he hadn't told me his name.

"I'm afraid it's going to have to be 'or something', Miss Weasley." he told me. With this, he brought his wand up and touched it once on Harry's forehead. Harry flinched slightly, as if he knew what was about to happen.

Harry's eyes drooped closed, and he slumped forwards in his chair. He seemed to have gone unconscious. I quickly leaped forwards and, with my Quidditch reflexes, I managed to catch him before he fell out of his chair.

"What have you done to him?" I exclaimed at him, holding Harry up in my arms. He was very heavy compared to the Quaffles I was used to dealing with.

"Look, I had to do it to heal him," he explained as he took Harry from me and flung him over his shoulder. I protested weakly, but I could see in his eyes that he wouldn't hurt Harry.

"Come on." he said as he led me out of that white room and into another whiter, if possible, room with a bed in the centre. I raised an eyebrow.

"Do you often have casualties?" I asked as he slung Harry onto the bed. Harry didn't even stir – apparently the man's non-verbal stunning spell was quite strong. He didn't answer. I looked briefly around the room.

In one corner was a little window, and right next to the metal plated door was a short table, laden with cloths and other medical equipment. I shuddered with the realisation of what some of the tools did. A couple of chairs were tactfully placed next to the bed, for visitors, though I doubt that they had many here in Mysteries.

The man stood over Harry and flicked his wand once. Harry's cloak and outer robes vanished at once, leaving him in only his jeans and a t-shirt. The man – I'll call him Guy– looked over at me for permission, his wand poised over Harry.

"May I?" he asked, nodding his head towards him. I shrugged, with a nod. He flicked his wand one more time, and Harry was left just in his snitch patterned boxers. I tried not to blush the Weasley colours.

Guy got to work on Harry, waving his wand so fast that it blurred. Wounds closed up, and bruises faded to yellow. A particularly large gash on his chest shrunk and healed rapidly, until it looked like a small puckered line of pink skin that was weeks rather than hours old.

The metal door we had entered the door through swung open, and several other people flooded into the room. I was pushed to the back of the room as they surrounded Harry. Some of them got about to healing him, but other conjured up pieces of tape that they stuck all over his body. I didn't have any idea of what these were. I wanted to help, but I knew that I would just get in the way.

Guy came to stand beside me. He grabbed a small flannel from the table at the side of the room and mopped at his sweaty brow. He pulled off his glasses and polished them with a piece of cloth taken from the depths of his robes. He replaced his glasses before turning to me.

"I've done most of it. He's in a stable condition now, and the others will get him back to normal. Look." he said, and we both turned our heads to where Harry was now peacefully sleeping. I jumped slightly; all of the other people had disappeared.

"Where have they all gone?" I asked as I sat down in one of the chairs. Guy sat down in the other.

"Into no-being, as we say here in Mysteries." he answered mysteriously. Stroking Harry's messy hair I waited a few seconds before voicing the question I had been dying to ask.

"What _happened_?" he took a deep breath before waving his wand once before us and conjuring up a large picture covering the opposite wall. It showed a small hourglass encased in a spinning glass ball.

"A time-turner?" I asked incredulously. "They are extremely dangerous! Even Hermione won't go near the things anymore."

"I know. If you just listen to me I'll tell you everything." I closed my mouth, suitably abashed. I settled back in my chair to listen to his explanation.

"It started when we realised that all of the time-turners were smashed in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, so we needed some new ones. Of course, they hadn't been made for years, and the room had swallowed up the secrets to making them. This meant that we had to start from scratch." he shifted in his seat slightly, and the picture on the screen flickered and changed to one of the broken time-turners. Guy smiled.

"Of course, you were there. You would know they were broken." I nodded.

"And the Bell Jars too." he waved his hand in dismissal.

"They were easy to replicate. They were recent developments. Anyway, we had to try many different combinations and spells, and we've finally made it safe enough to test it on humans." I flinched slightly at the word 'safe', but other than that, I didn't react or say anything.

"We sent out a discrete request for volunteers, with a small obliviating charm that would make them forget about it if they declined. That's why only Harry knows about it – nobody but him thought that it was safe enough."

I nodded and moved closer to Harry again.

Guy continued. "He wasn't allowed to tell anyone. We set him off from a safe destination and turned it back three hours. We'd assumed that it would be easy for him because he's already used one." he turned to Harry and frowned. "Now we just need to figure out what went wrong. Was it the time-turner or the time he went to?" he mused.

I watched Harry while Guy thought this over. Harry looked so peaceful in sleep. Most of his nightmares had vanished, but often people could still see the torment in his eyes due to the aftermath of the War. In sleep, he looked truly innocent and harmless. He looked like he had a normal childhood. All of that from the War seemed to disappear.

"I'll need to talk to him when he wakes up, of course." Guy announced as he stood up. "I'm going to run a few more tests, but I'll know when he awakes." he smiled at me – a first -before leaving through the metal door and shutting it behind him. Now it was just an eerie silence.

I reached out to hold Harry's warm hand with one of my hands and stroked his hair with my other.

"Oh Harry," I softly murmured at his unconscious figure. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?" I smiled weakly.

I don't know long I sat there, just looking at him, but it must have been a few hours. I got up and pulled back the curtain by the window - it as just beginning to turn darker.

I resumed my stoking of his hair, speaking softly to him as I did so. Harry stirred, and I felt my hand freeze. Slowly, his eyelids began to flutter, and then they opened fully, staring at me. A beam spread across my face; he was alright. He struggled to sit up, but I held him down.

"You need your rest." I warned. The door on my right opened and Guy came in. He checked Harry's temperature and pulse, and declared that he would be free to go if he didn't overexert himself. I snorted – did he _know_ who he was talking to?

Harry nodded, though we both knew that he would do no such thing. Guy settled himself down in the chair opposite me, on the other side of the bed, while Harry sat up.

"What happened?" Guy said, directly to the point. No 'how are you feeling' or anything. He kept eye contact with Harry as he waited for a response.

"Well," Harry begun. I saw that Guy was making notes on this already. "I went back three hours, like you said, but I ran into some trouble. The spot we thought to be safe was actually filled with radical purebloods. They were _not_ happy to see me.

So, naturally, they start hexing and cursing me for crashing their little party. There were about twenty of them there, so I couldn't fight back, even though they weren't trained like I was. There were too many of them." He was speaking in a calm voice, as if he was just recounting what he had eaten for breakfast. I supposed that it came with being an auror and giving so many reports.

"I tried, of course, so I only got the sectumsempra twice. Then they abandoned their wands altogether and just started punching me." He winced at the memory – the only outward sign that it had hurt – but it was only for a split second. "Not a pretty sight, I'll tell you that." He paused to take a breath.

"Anyway, I managed to apparate out of there, but I splinched myself in my wand arm, so I couldn't get anywhere else. Somehow, I'd arrived at the bottom of Diagon Hill – and there was a girl with flaming red hair at the top." He squeezed my hand, smiling at me gratefully. "I don't think I'd have wanted it to be anyone else." I returned the smile.

"Why you, though?" I asked. "You're a little…conspicuous."

He chuckled at my obvious deductions.

"Yeah, but nobody else wanted to do it – they all thought that it was too dangerous." He told me.

"Are all aurors wimps now, then?" I asked jokingly.

"Yep, pretty much." He replied seriously, without so much of a blink of an eye.

"Nothing is too hard for the Chosen One though, is it?" I grinned. He stuck his tongue out at me, and I threw my head back and let out a loud laugh. I poked his chest and looked up at him, my eyes sparkling.

Harry and I locked eyes, unmoving, unblinking. My laugh faded to silence as we closed up in a world with just us two. His emerald eyes stared into my caramel ones, and it was all I could do to not reach out, grab his face, and kiss him. Guy coughed loudly, and we both jumped a little. Evidently, neither of us had realised that he was still there.

"We _are_ engaged," I said nervously, trying to explain the moment. Guy smiled.

"Ah, yes, _that_ little mix up. Everyone knows about that now." My thoughts flew into panic mode at his words. Were they going to split us up? They couldn't do that, could they? Guy chuckled at my worried expression, though his eyes were serious, as always.

"Of course not. You're the dream couple – why would they ruin that?" he said. I smiled and relaxed back in my chair. Phew: I had thought that I would have to marry someone else and not him.

Guy looked between us and quickly excused himself.

"I'll check up on your in half an hour." He called as he made his way out of the room. He shut the door behind him again, leaving Harry and me alone.

Instantly, I was in his arms, all disregard for his present state. Our lips met in a fiery passion that could equal no other.

One of his hands was in my hair, pulling me closer to him, and the other was settled on my hip. I was leaning over the bed, but he pulled me onto it so we were sitting on it together. My hands threaded through the hair at the back of his neck and I pulled him even closer, moulding his lips to my own.

He moaned softly when I pulled away for breath, our faces flushed. His lips were swollen and his hair was thoroughly mussed up. I touched my own lips, then my hair, and found them to be the same. I reached across the small distance between us to straighten his crooked glasses.

His arm wrapped around my waist and I pulled my legs up on the bed as I kicked my shoes off, cuddling into him. I leant my head on his broad shoulder and he in turn rested his on my head. I sighed and wrapped my arms around him.

"I'm just glad you're okay." I whispered into his ear. He squeezed my waist tightly.

"I could never leave you." He replied sincerely. A smile lit up my face as I turned to look up at him in the face.

"And you never will." I confirmed, barely suppressing my excitement. "We're getting married!" I resisted a squeal, content on just hugging Harry as tightly as I could. He pulled back a little, and I looked up at him confusedly.

"Ouch, Gin." He winced. "You _are_ a Quidditch player, you know. Strong and all that?" I realised what he was saying and relaxed my death grip. Imagine that; death by hugging.

His reference to me being a Quidditch player made me smile even more. I hadn't even tried out yet, or even told him about the trails, yet he had the upmost confidence in me that I would make a team.

I made to lean against his shoulder again but his hand on my chin made me stop. I looked up at him in mild surprise. His lime-green eyes penetrated into my skull, and I was overwhelmed by the intensity of his look, even through his glasses. I gulped.

"Ginny," he began earnestly, taking my hand and keeping my gaze with his. "I just want you to know that I was going to propose anyway, not just because of this stupid law." I couldn't seem to make my tongue work – my mouth opened and closed like a goldfish's but no words came out.

"I love you, Ginny, and I always will." He finished, and finally, I was able to form words again. I flung my arms around his neck and pulled him close to me; so close that our noses were almost touching.

"I love you too, Harry Potter." I declare, before kissing him again.


	15. Fears will be Overcome

**Again, firstly, I want to know what everyone thinks of the Veela situation – keep it or scrap it? I've had a couple of different views, so I'm interested to see what everyone else says. I'll tell you next chapter :)**

**Secondly, I'm writing a new part-time fic portraying all of the characters who died deaths. I've already written James, Lily, and the time when they first thought Peter was dead. Should I write more? Please let me know!**

**~flutegirl98  
**

_Harry Potter fact of the week: **Crookshanks is no ordinary cat, as he is half-kneazle. Kneazles are intelligent cat-like creatures who can sniff out suspicious characters, and if a kneazle takes a liking to a witch or wizard they make excellent pets.**_

* * *

**__****Disclaimer:** anything (characters, places etc) you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling / Bloomsbury / Scholastic / Warner Bros.

* * *

**Hermione PoV**

I froze in the lift, my foot hovering as it paused in the middle of the step. Fred's easy smile had turned into a fierce glare in less than a nanosecond. My mouth let out a shaky breath as I noticed that it wasn't directed at me. McLaggen flinched, and he slowly extracted his arm from around my shoulders, as if he was afraid that any sudden movements would make Fred even angrier.

Quickly, I wriggled out of the lift and started to push through the small queue waiting for the lift to get to Fred. I touched him on the arm, and his glare transferred to me until he saw who it was. His gaze softened and the smile that was only meant for me spread onto his face.

Unfortunately, this didn't last for long. A dangerous stare was quickly fixed back onto McLaggen's smirking face, and it only increased in intensity as McLaggen made his way over to where we were standing.

"Alright there, Granger?" he taunted as I scowled at him. "Running off before we could fix a time for our date?"

I snorted, but as I looked up at Fred's stricken face, I could see that the damage had been done. His wide eyes switched from furious to hurt, all in the space of less than a second.

"What?" he asked, his voice coming out strangled. I tried to reassure him, but he was having none of it. I decided for the direct approach.

"You." I growled into McLaggen's face, stretching myself up on my tiptoes so that I could see his eyes, my hands naturally finding their way to my hips. "I would never go on a date with you. Ever. I'd rather go on a date with Grawp. Go back to your unlucky fiancée."

He took a large step back – probably to get out of my wand range – and sent me a crooked smile that he thought was attractive. "The Falcons managed to get me out of it – being a Quidditch player has its perks, you know. They said that I didn't have time for a wife. True to that. I could never be held down by a woman."

I shot him a scornful look. "Girls cramp your style then, _Cormac_?" I said sarcastically. A grin spread across his face like wildfire, and he regained the step he had taken away.

"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "So, will you go on a date with me then, Granger?" his cocky smile was back again, and he blatantly ignored Fred.

"Didn't I make myself clear, McLaggen? I will never go on a date with you." I told him forcefully. And, for good measure, I stomped hard on his foot before pulling Fred away and walking off.

"Might as well give you a reason to be here!" I called fake sweetly over my shoulder before I grabbed Fred and apparated us out of the hospital.

We landed heavily in a green field adorned with small daisies. I sunk down into the lush green and dropped my head into my hands. Groaning, I thought about how I had hoped that I would never have had to see McLaggen again.

Soon though, I felt calloused hands stroking my head softly. I relaxed at his touch and he sat down next to me. The sky seemed even bluer as I leant into Fred's body and looked up. His arms automatically wrapped around me, keeping me warm on the breezy day.

I tilted my head upwards to look up at his face. His forehead was crumpled and his brow was furrowed, as if he was thinking of something. I placed my hand on his cheek carefully, and he jumped very lightly. He looked down at me, as if seeing me there for the first time. I waited for him to speak, which he did almost instantly.

"Hermione," he begun, but then paused and tried to start again. "Hermione-" again, he stopped. His eyebrows pulled together in confusion, as if he was trying to for a proper sentence.

"Spit it out." I told him, albeit gently.

"Hermione, McLaggen wasn't serious about you going on a date with him, was he?" Fred questioned. I bit back a laugh – I was sure that it wouldn't exactly be considered polite. However, I couldn't hold back a snort, which led to a full laugh.

"No way!" I said through my laughs. My chest wheezed as I tried to gain more air into my system. "I would never go out with that cocky twat!" my laughing ceased to just a small giggle, and I looked up to see Fred smiling down at me.

"So you're still engaged to me?" he asked softly.

"Always." I whispered. I stared into his sky blue eyes and felt myself leaning in towards him. It was hard to describe, but it was like some hidden force was pulling us together, and I couldn't resist any longer.

His tongue darted out to moisten his lips, and I sub-consciously felt mine doing the same. We both learned closer, and I dug my hands into the moist grass to steady myself.

His face loomed over mine, and just as his mouth was about to touch mine, I squeaked and jumped back, landing heavily on my bum. My breathing was heavy, even though nothing had actually happened. I sat myself up and saw Fred still sitting there with a bemused expression on his red face.

I instantly blushed when I realised what I had done and I covered my mouth with my hands. I scooted a little further away from him and sat back, leaning on my hands. I opened my mouth to speak.

"Sorry." We both said to each other at the exact same time. I fought the urge to laugh. I nodded my head.

"You go first." I allowed, miming the action of zipping up my mouth and throwing away the key. He took a deep breath before speaking.

"I'm sorry," he apologised. He wrung his hands together as he spoke, and his leg was jumping nervously "I shouldn't be trying to kiss you. It's too soon and you don't even know how you really feel about me yet. We were just forced into this." I almost rolled my eyes at his obliviousness. Couldn't he see the obvious connection that we had?

Pulling myself closer, I reached out and held his hands between my own. I looked into his eyes to clarify every word that I said.

"Fred, I do like you. I really do. It's not your fault at all – I was leaning in just as much as you were! You do know it takes two for a kiss, right?" I joked lightly. "All jokes aside though, I do feel as if we are moving too fast. We got engaged – what, yesterday? And only officially today. I just think that we need to get to know each other a little better. Maybe after a date or two?" I suggested, winking suggestively at him. He grinned in return.

"But I can give you something now." I leant forwards slightly and lightly pecked him on the cheek. It was only a very short kiss, but my lips felt like they were on fire. I looked up at Fred, wide eyed. Could he feel the same reaction that I did? By his awestruck expression, and the hand touching the spot where I had kissed him, I could say that he had.

I giggled slightly, the sound muffled by my hand. I bounded up and held out my hand for him.

"C'mon then!" I laughed cheerfully. Suddenly the day seemed much brighter. He hesitantly looked up at me. He was looking at my hand warily, as if it might explode. I grinned broadly at him, but this seemed to increase his trepidation. I forcefully grabbed his hand, and started running off before he had fully stood up.

This resulted in a tumble for him and more stitches for me. He looked so funny just lying there, sprawled out on the dew with his limbs sticking out in all directions. He stayed there for a few more moments while I caught my breath. I held out my hand again to pull him up but what he did next was unexpected.

As quick as a bludger, his hand darted out to snag my wrist. He jerked it swiftly towards himself, and soon I was lying on the ground beside him. He chuckled as I swatted at him, and we lay there for a few more minutes in amicable silence before I realised that there had been something that I had wanted to do.

Again, I darted up, but this time I just left Fred lying on the damp ground and skipped off by myself. He would follow me. Sure enough, after a few moments of me moving further and further away, I felt his hand grab mine. Soon we were both skipping along, laughing to ourselves at our childishness. To any outsiders, we must have looked crazy – us skipping along, laughing like mad people.

We slowed to a leisurely walk as we neared a fence, and I swung our arms between us.

"Where are we, actually?" Fred brought up. Oops. It seemed that I'd forgotten to tell him. I simply grinned back at him before hauling myself over the rusty gate and jumping down to the ground. He jumped down next to me a second later and gasped a little when he recognised our surroundings. He turned to me with a mischievous smile on his face.

His hands found my waist as he lifted me up and span me around for no real reason. I squealed as he did so, and when he set me down his hands stayed on my hips.

He seemed to notice that he was still holding me and quickly released me, but not before a blush spread over both of our faces. I could still feel the lingering pressure of his hands on my waist.

He cleared his throat quickly, but his nose stayed red in the way that only Fred's did. Ron's ears often tinged red when he was embarrassed, but the others just had the Weasley blush.

"How did you know that this was here?" he asked, looking at me directly in the eyes. I shrugged.

"I used to explore early in the mornings when I stayed here. Ron and Harry used to sleep in for hours, you see." I told him cheerfully. I began to walk slowly backwards towards the Burrow, gesturing with my hands for him to follow me.

He did so, leaping and bounding like a dog as he went along. I clamped my lips shut to prevent myself from laughing, but the smile still spread over my face. I spun around and sprinted towards the rickety building, and I could hear Fred's pounding footsteps behind me. I grinned where he couldn't see. What he didn't know was that I had been working out for the Department of Mysteries. We sometimes had to do top-secret missions that were not unlike Aurors' ones, but were even more top-secret. I was at the top of my game.

The thumps behind me slowed as we ascended the last small hill and I jumped over the hedge into their overgrown garden, cheering through my heavy breathing. He arrived a few seconds later. He stepped over the small hedge slowly, doubled over and continued wheezing, clutching at his abdomen.

His panting slowly subsided and he straightened up, mock-glaring at me; I smirked back at him, sticking my tongue out before sauntering off towards the door. I could hear him complaining behind me.

"You know I'm out of shape!" he whined as he slouched after me. "I haven't played Quidditch in years!"

I tutted and turned around. "It was just over _one_ year, Fred. Don't over exaggerate." I winked at him with new confidence before wrenching open the old door and stepping into what had now become my second home. I breathed in deeply. It smelt like cupcakes and laundry. Perfect.

Fred trailed behind me as I made my way into the kitchen. There I found Mrs Weasley cooking several different things at once. On the stove, a small pan was bubbling and frothing as it self-stirred itself. The knife was chopping up carrots, and the bowl of the dry mixture stirred itself. From the oven wafted a delicious smell.

Mrs Weasley was bustling around, stirring pots here, combining ingredients there. She hadn't seemed to notice us yet, but Fred soon made his presence clear. He sauntered up to the work surface to reach out for one of the cupcakes waiting to be iced. They still looked warm, and I could smell their delicious scent from where I was standing.

Sure enough, a hand darted out to slap Fred's hand away on reflex. Mrs Weasley turned to him, her flour-coated hands finding their way to her hips. Fred smiled sheepishly at her.

"Not yet!" she scolded him as she waved a wooden spoon in his face, unintentionally flicking flour onto his shirt. Fred shrugged and dusted his shirt off.

"Can't I have one of your delicious cupcakes, mother dearest?" he pleaded, full puppy-dog now on his face. But Molly Weasley was better than that.

"No!" this time she swatted at him with a dishcloth, and she suddenly noticed that I was standing in the doorway. Her motherly face softened and she shooed Fred away.

"Hermione. Would you be dear and ice these cakes for me?" she asked kindly. I could see Fred's outraged face out of the corner of my eye and I stifled a giggle.

"Sure, Mrs – Molly." I smiled and took the spoon she was offering to me and got to work on the little treats. I flicked my wand and a glass bowl came zooming into my waiting hand. The butter skidded to a halt on the work surface in front of me, and the icing sugar packet opened itself. I smiled at my handiwork – Mrs Wea- Molly had been teaching me useful household spells recently.

The butter cream soon began to mix itself with exactly the right proportions, and I decided to make some simple icing with water too. I mixed it by hand to give myself something to do, and also to tempt Fred with it. He was standing as far away from the cakes as Mrs Weasley could get him, but he was staring at them longingly.

I stirred the icing rhythmically, and watched as it dripped from the spoon in a perfectly smooth consistency. I coated some of the cakes with it, and then drizzled them with some red icing I had just concocted up. I winked at Fred before tantalisingly slowly covering the rest of the cakes with the butter cream icing.

I swished my wand over the whole batch, and each one flickered to a different colour before holding it. Adding a few edible flowers as decorations, I smiled to myself.

"You're really good with that charm work." Fred said into my ear. I jumped; I hadn't realised that he was that close.

"Erm, thanks." I said awkwardly. I really had no idea what to say when someone complimented me. A sudden thought struck me.

"Have you been reading Ron's book?" I asked, but he just looked confused. "You know, the one he tried to hide from me?" I prompted, but he continued to look as if he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. He surely must have seen it – Ron kept his lying around every which way. I swear he gave one to Harry, too. Or, he was a very good actor. My brain chose the latter.

"So you don't know the book 12 Fail Safe Ways To Charm Witches?" I asked. My hand fell to my hip automatically. He still looked befuddled.

"Uh, no." he shook his head. "Never even heard of it." he reassured me. His face and voice were sincere, so I believed him.

"Oh, Hermione! These look lovely!" Mrs Weasley cooed, coming over to observe my cakes. I'd almost forgotten about them. I smiled sheepishly, again fazed by the compliment. Maybe _I _needed to read that book.

Mrs Weasley waved her wand to levitate the cakes and placed them in the oven again to warm them up.

"Don't worry." she told me. "The icing won't melt with the charm I put on them. And, the oven is off – it's just cooling down." she smiled at me again before walking off to scold the kitchen knife for cutting up the carrots wrong. I turned to Fred again.

"Well if you see it, can you give it to me?" I asked. Now he just looked even more confused than he had been before. Oops. A simple touch on his arm cleared all of the emotions from his face, however.

"Err-" he said, but I just flashed a quick smile at him.

"Don't worry." I told him.

"Do you need any more help, Molly?" I asked. I had at least remembered to call her by the right name this time. She beamed back at me.

"It's fine, actually. You and Fred can go an do what you want. I'll call you into dinner in about half an hour." she seemed to rethink her words then, because she hastily added: "Not _whatever_ you want." she looked sternly at Fred while I blushed. We all knew what she was implying.

Fred and I decided to go outside again, as it was such a nice day. The sun was shining and there was not a cloud in sight. I was in bliss, but then Fred brought the broomsticks out. Yes, you heard me, the broomsticks. I didn't fly! He knew that I was rubbish at it! I shrilly reminded Fred of this fact but he just laughed me off, handing me an old shooting star and telling me that it was one of the safest brooms they had.

I glared at him again and dropped the broom onto the ground next to my feet.

"Do I really have to do this?" I pleaded. He just smirked and nodded. I scowled back at him.

He mounted his cleansweep easily while I stood there stupidly, trying to work out the best way to get onto the piece of wood. Fred soon saw my dilemma and came over to help me.

"Just hold out your hand and say 'up'". He told me. If only it were that simple.

"Up. Up. Up! UP!" I told it, but to no avail. "UP!" I growled, but the broomstick merely rolled over, taunting me. Fred hopped off of his broom with the ease that only Quidditch players could muster up, and walked over to help me.

"Up." he told it calmly. As I had suspected, the broom jumped right into his hand, quivering as if ready for a race.

I snatched it out of his hands and a grin spread on his face.

"It was about to do that." I mumbled, before swinging my leg over the broom. I stood there and glanced over to Fred, who was looking at me expectantly. "Now what?" I asked, feeling like such a fool for doing so.

"Kick off very slightly from the ground." he told me. I gave the ground the most tentative push I could muster up and the broom jumped a couple of inches, my toes now skimming the grass.

I looked up at Fred, who was now several meters above the ground and grinning broadly. The wind whipped his hair around slightly, giving him the 'tousled' look that Quidditch players were known for. It was what made them so desirable amongst the girls back at Hogwarts.

"Tilt the broom upwards a little." he shouted down to me. I did as he told me, and the broom slowly rose to where he was hovering.

"See – you're a natural." he told me. I snorted, and the movement made the broom jerk underneath me. I gripped it tighter. How far away from the ground was I? Ten, twenty metres? I gulped, but Fred was next to me to steady me.

I smiled at him gratefully and slowly leant forwards, gradually increasing my speed until I could feel the wind rushing past my ears.

"Wooohooooo!" I screamed in exhilaration. I could see Fred doing laps of the field, twisting and turning as he went. He sped up suddenly, and did a couple of flips in the air. I swear to Godric that my mouth actually dropped open. He was amazing. I would never be that good.

He grinned crookedly at me and ran a hand through his unruly hair. We both did a few more laps, racing each other around the field. Obviously, Fred won, but he was taking it easy for me.

After we had been doing this for a while, I spotted a hint of red on the green grass below. I focused on it an saw that if I looked closely, it looked like Mrs Weasley. She seemed to be shouting up at us, waving her arms around in random shapes that I couldn't really comprehend. Her words were made indecipherable by the wind, and the height we were at.

I looked over to Fred to see if he could hear her, but he was rapidly descending towards her, his broom angled in a steep decline. He pulled out of the dive with a flourish and grinned charmingly at his mum before starting to talk with her. I made to go down to meet them, but then realised that I didn't know how to.

I twisted and turned in rapid 360 degree circles, but I couldn't work out how to get down. Finally, I tried, leaning forwards and down. Thankfully, the broom started to lower towards the two Weasleys. Soon I was in hearing distance, and in no time at all I had touched down.

I flung my broom down and stormed over to Fred, pulling out my wand from the depths of my pocket as I did so.

"You didn't tell me how to get down!" I yelled. My wand was now directly aimed at his red hair. His Adams' Apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously. I lowered my wand in frustration. He was just too darn cute to stay mad at for long.

I heard a chuckling from behind me, and turned to see Mrs Weasley laughing quietly to herself. I raised an eyebrow at her questioningly.

"You two make such a cute couple." she told us as we wandered back to the Burrow. Apparently she had come out to tell us that dinner was served. She looked behind me.

"Ron's been trying to get her on a broom for years, and you got her on one on your first try." she told Fred, who was trailing behind us looking abashed. "Come on." she said as she quickened her pace. The house was full for a second time, with the extended family there too. Only Charlie wasn't present.

I squeezed myself in-between Harry and Ron, apologising for our lateness. The conversation was rowdy, as per usual at the Weasley household. People shoved food into their mouths left right and centre, while us non-Weasleys just watched with partly astonishment (that they could eat so much), revulsion (that they could eat so grossly) and endearment (Fleur and Harry looking at their other halfs). Personally, I couldn't see what was so attracting about a person stuffing their face. Mind you, Bill and Ginny were the polite ones in comparison.

I could see Fred where he was sitting opposite me, and he was eating slowly for once. He seemed to be taking a lot more care to act civilised than usual. Of course, the non-Weasleys finished first, having not eaten as much.

Dessert was served, and soon all of us were leaning back in our seats and rubbing our stomachs after our forth helpings. I blamed Mrs Weasley for her delicious food. Finally, the plates were cleared and the table was empty, save for a few decorations. Mr Weasley cleared his throat.

"We have something to say." he began, looking at Mrs Weasley to indicate who he was talking about. "To those of you who were here last dinnertime with all of us, you may remember the conversation we had." I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. The conversations weren't any different from usual, were they? Unless – I had a sudden thought. Unless they had undertaken a conversation after I had left the room. Was that why they were acting so suspiciously after I came downstairs. Was it about me?

These thoughts ran through my head in rapid succession, one after another. Before my frazzled brain could overwork itself any longer, Mr Weasley began to speak again, and his next words held me captive.

"We need to talk about Fred."


	16. Revelations will be Disclosed

**I'm really sorry for writing so slowly! I feel like I've been so busy recently - just last week I had 2 panto rehearsals, an awards ceremony and 2 concerts! :/ Thank you for sticking with my story - hope you liked this chapter (and tell me in the REVIEWS).**

**~flutegirl98**

_"My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations." _**The Fault in Our Stars **

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**__****Disclaimer:** anything (characters, places etc) you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling / Bloomsbury / Scholastic / Warner Bros.

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**Hermione PoV**

The lush green grass felt cool beneath my bare feet as I wiggled my toes deeper into the ground. A light breeze swept through the field, and a few autumn leaves fluttered down from a moulting tree. The sky was a little darker then the fresh blue of before, but there was still plenty of light. I laid back on the moist dew and basked in what little sunlight was left. One by one, I un-tensed my muscles and closed my eyes. My hands dug into the soft leaves.

I could still hear birds chirping, their little voices so cheerful. A stream at the other end of the grass trickled gently, and it was soothing to me. I could smell the air around me; it was scented with flowers and greenery, with the smells of the woodland surrounding me. Nobody else thought that there was a smell for air, but it actually had many different scents hidden amongst its bland exterior.

There was the smell of rain for one, the smell of freshness and renewal. There was the smell found only at altitude, where it thins out to great heights. There was the smell of stuffiness, when a room has been enclosed upon itself for too long. There were so many more that I simply could not name. I inhaled deeply and let myself over to my senses.

The sound of approaching footsteps reached my sensitive ears and I frowned, sitting up with some reluctance. They were heavy, but somehow soft too – this person was working hard to conceal their movement. I slowly drew my wand out of my pocket and held it firmly in my hand, pointing to where I had deduced the walker must have been coming from.

A bright ginger head came into view as I watched, and I let my hand fall. No threat. I pushed myself to my feet and brushed the grass off myself. I shivered slightly, but cast a quick warming charm on my bare legs before smiling at Fred. Of course it would be him – who else?

When he reached me we both sank down onto the grass and I pulled my soft boots onto my cold toes. I quickly charmed the heels off of them, and adjusted them so that they would be even more comfortable.

"I still have three questions." He announced out of the blue. I looked at him, and he was gazing at me straight in the eyes. It was sending shivers down my spine that were nothing to do with the increasing cold.

"I thought you had four." I tilted my head to the side as I thought and then nodded in confirmation. "Yes, definitely four." Fred's serious demeanour vanished, and he rolled his eyes at me. He flicked his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

"Merman, mermaid." He set aside.

"Ask away." I told him. He looked away, and his fingers started to play with the grass by our sides, pulling it up in tufts and exposing the moist dirt underneath. He continued this for several more minutes, until I was beginning to get worried about the state the grass would be left in. I placed my hand over his, halting his movements, and his worried blue eyes looked up at me.

"Do you mind?" he blurted suddenly. I raised one plucked eyebrow at him questionly. "That I'm a Veela, I mean." I sighed in realisation, turning his hand over and clasping it in mine. His eyes flicked down to our conjoined hands, and then back up to my eyes.

"Of course not." I told him earnestly with a timid smile held on my face. "I don't care whether you're a human, part-Veela – Merlin; I don't even care if you sprouted wings and flew around like a bludger!" I could tell that he was back to his normal mood when he smirked at me.

"It's a snitch which has the wings, Granger." He reminded me.

"I knew that." I defended myself. He just grinned lopsidedly at me, before tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear softly. I blushed furiously.

I settled myself back on the grass again, hands behind my head as I looked at the darkening sky. Fred mimicked my posture, and our misty breaths mingled together in the frosty air. I wasn't cold, though. Maybe I should have been.

"It's a good thing though." He mused. I turned to him and leant on one elbow to prop myself up.

"What?" I inquired. I thought that it could be something big, like how he could produce feathers.

"We managed to get back here in time for dinner." I groaned and slapped him lightly on the head before collapsing back down back into my comfortable position.

"I thought you had something important to say!" I exclaimed.

"Nah." It went quiet for a few minutes, and I watched the sunset in the amicable silence.

"It is odd though." He began again. I didn't move this time. "How I'm a Veela, a whole different species. I'm not me anymore! I can now make feathers, and maybe fire. I have heightened senses, different emotions and Godric knows how many other weird things! I have different blood in my veins! And, curse my unlucky bones, I'm even more attractive than before! How will I fight off all of the ladies?" He flung a long arm over his head dramatically, as if shielding his eyes from the 'hardships' of his future.

I struggled to process all of the new information and mixed emotions that he was giving out. Sure, things had been mentioned at dinner, but I hadn't really taken it in; I was too busy trying to work out whether it was a prank or not. Turns out, it's not.

It was very confusing, really. Ginny, George, Charlie, Angelina and Audrey – for some odd reason – had thought that it was a joke. The others all already knew about it, and had agreed beforehand to tell the rest of the family about it.

Ginny and George however, had mistaken it for their mother trying to make a prank on Fred. They'd thought that everyone else was in on it – even Fleur. They'd just gone along with it, and somewhere along the way, Ginny had managed to convince herself that it was her idea. How that girl's brain worked, I'll never know.

Eventually we had it all sorted out, and now everyone knows that it is true. It came as a bit of a shock to Harry and me, but it definitely hit Ron the most. He didn't really show an outward reaction, but I could tell from being his friend for so many years that he was deeply distressed by it.

I brought my scrambled mind back to the present and decided to go through all of this new information systematically, beginning at the start.

"Firstly, you're not a whole new species." I told him, but I just received a withering look from underneath his raised arm. "Well, okay, maybe you are a bit." His arm dropped back down and I gently prised it off so that I that I could see his eyes. "But that doesn't matter! It doesn't change anything. Honest." Fred rolled his eyes at me but didn't hide underneath his arm again.

"You can make feathers?" I asked curiously, addressing the next issue on my mental list. "Cool!" Fred's eyebrows show up in surprise – evidently he hadn't anticipated that sort of a reaction from me. As Fred sat up to show me, I did the same. He held out his fist, clenched it, and then opened it slowly to reveal a pair of small, orange feathers.

I picked them up in both of my hands, and gently held them in my palms. Balancing them both in my left hand, I pulled out my wand and flicked at them. A pair of small hooks grew out of the tops, followed by a bronze chain. They sparkled, and rustled once before settling. Putting my wand away, I hooked them into my ears and tucked my hair back, showing them off to Fred.

"Do you like them?" I asked. He examined the earrings carefully.

"Love them." He smiled. I tried to remember where our conversation had been going.

"Fire?" I prompted. Fred shrugged.

"I don't know. Fleur seems to think that I can make fire, but I'm not sure. She can make small flames on her hands, but I might be able to do more. I'm more powerful because my blood is less diluted, but nobody knows what will happen." He shrugged. I grinned at him and bumped him slightly with my shoulder.

"Try? For me?" I asked. Rolling his eyes, he then closed them and stretched out his arms, flexing them. His outstretched fingers quivered slightly, and I focused my attention on them. The very tips of them lightened slightly and then started to burn white hot. They dimmed to a bright ember orange, and Fred grinned at me.

"No flames, but I'll get there." He winked.

"So what about your frightened senses?" I asked, before realising my slip. "Oops! Heightened senses." I corrected. He chuckled.

"Yeah, I'm really frightening!" he mock growled. "Grrr!" he held his clawed hands up and snarled at me but I didn't budge.

"You're terrifying." I said sarcastically, and then leant away slightly. "Can you hear me now?" I lowered my voice to a miniscule whisper.

"Yep." He told me. "And I can smell that flowery perfume you're wearing too. Lilac?" he guessed. My eyebrows rose. He really surprised me sometimes.

"And how do you know what different flowers smell like?" I giggled.

"You forget that I double-handedly created the Wonder Witches line of products. I know my flowers!"

"Oh, yeah, how is the shop going? I hear you two are quite the successful businessmen!" he nodded slightly.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." He mumbled. This was a side of Fred I'd never seen before – here he was, shy and nervous, rather than the loud, boisterous and confident person he usually was. Maybe it was because he was away from his twin. He perked up suddenly as though a thought had struck him.

"Hey! I never got to thank you properly for thanking George and me with the extendable ears." He remembered. He grinned as I blushed.

"It was nothing." I dismissed. It was true; I'd spent most of the year before researching common eavesdropping methods to find out Rita Skeeter's secret. Making those extendable ears was easy compared to the amount of books I had read on them.

"No, seriously." He insisted. "Thank you. What can I give you in return?" my face flushed red again.

"Really, you don't have to give me anything." I smiled weakly. He took my hand in a sudden move, and stared into my eyes with determination. With his other hand he held up my chin so that I couldn't look away.

"One day, you're going to have to start accepting gifts and compliments, aren't you?" he smiled. I shrugged as I tried to manoeuvre my face out of his grasp. He reluctantly let me go, but I could still feel the imprints of where his fingers had been touching my skin. I covered my cheek with my hand. I could feel it tingling still.

"I guess. Could I have some extendable ears, then?" I asked. I had thought that it was a perfectly sensible request, but Fred doubled over with laughter.

"What?" I asked indigently. "It was a sensible request!" I slapped his arm lightly to get him to respond to me, but it still took him several minutes to cease his boisterous laughter. He was still wheezing when he began to talk.

"Sorry!" he apologised. "I'm in a weird mood."

"I can see." I eyed him apprehensively. "Is this the weird emotions thing?"

"Yeah, probably. I don't really know much about it though. Fleur thinks I should go to France with her next week – before the weddings – and speak to some of his cousins." He told me. Strangely, I felt a wave of what felt like jealously rush through me – but why would I be jealous? Sure, he was my fiancé, but I wasn't exactly _dating_ him, and Fleur was married to his brother.

"You can come if you'd like." He suggested. He looked at me with a nervous but hopeful expression on his face, which was quickly replaced with a happier one when my face changed into a grin.

"Of course I will!" Our hug was swift, my arms barely touching his shoulders but still feeling his warmth.

"Great!" He beamed at me. "Chocolate?" he dug his hand into his pocket and drew out a very squashed looking packet.

"It might be squished at bit." He admitted. I took it from his outstretched hand, unwrapped it, and showed him the contents. "Very squished then. It _was_ supposed to be a spider swirl."

The chocolate resembled more of a lump of brown goo, than a solid chocolate swirl. I smiled gratefully anyway. I took a timid bite into the lump and chewed it. It scorched my tongue and I coughed loudly.

"Aguamenti." I choked, conjuring up a glass for the water to pour into. I gulped it down before breathing out again. Calmer now, I turned to Fred, who was looking at another equally squished piece of confectionary with confusion written on his face. Comprehension dawned upon him and he turned to me.

"I thought it was a spider swirl, honest!" he said guiltily. "But I think it was a hot hag hazelnut."

"How is that even close to a spider swirl? A hot hag hazelnut doesn't even have chocolate in!" I wasn't really angry at him, but it was fun to wind him up.

"Sorry?" He tried. "Have a chocolate." He offered me the _real _spider swirl and I wrinkled my nose at it.

"I think that's enough sweets for one day." I explained.

"But you've only had one!" he cried. I rolled my eyes.

"And that's enough for me. You should know by now that I don't have a sweet tooth!"

"I know." He said.

"So, what about this new emotions and feelings thing then? Do you always feel happy or sad all of the time or something?" I queried. He glanced away, as if looking for inspiration in our surroundings.

"I honestly don't know." He shrugged. "I guess we'll have to find out more in France." I hummed in agreement and then we fell silent again. I glanced around. It was getting quite dark, although it was almost summer time. It was beautiful, though. The dark navy blue sky twinkled with countless numbers of stars that only shone brighter from being out of the city.

I couldn't make out the trees around me anymore, but I could still sense the faint glow of the Burrow a hundred metres away. The grass was colder than before, and dew was starting to form, but still I was not cold. Warmth seemed to emit from Fred's body.

"So," he began. I turned to him, and I could still see the obvious smirk on his face despite the fading light.

"What?" I felt a grin spreading on my face. His moods were infectious.

"Have you noticed my increased attractiveness?" he winked. "Not that it was really necessary." He hastily added, grinning mischievously at me.

"What?" I spluttered. My face flushed to a beetroot shade that was certainly not at all flattering. He leant in closer, leaning on one elbow, as if he knew how much I was affected just by his very presence.

"I said, do you find me more attractive than I was before?" he repeated. He was still grinning, and his face was only a hair's width away from mine. I exhaled nervously.

"I – I mean, I haven't, I didn't – um –see you before." I managed to voice uneasily. His wide smile only intensified – if that was possible.

"So, you're saying that you never paid attention to me before?" Fred frowned. He sat back quickly, his expression saddened. I suddenly felt guilty.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Fred. Of course I noticed you! You've always been one of my favourite Weasleys!" I hastily gabbled. He raised a solitary eyebrow at me.

"**One** of your favourites? I'm your fiancé!" he said. His eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Well, there is Ginny and Ron –" I began, but he cut me off with one swift glare. "Yes, you were my favourite." I finally gave in. He grinned again – it felt like all of a sudden the world had brightened very slightly.

"Good. You still haven't answered my question yet." He added.

"Is that your last question then?" I asked deviously. He pretended to look shocked.

"No! I still have three left!" he exclaimed, seemingly outraged – but I wasn't fooled this time. "Okay," he allowed. "Only two left now. Go on then, answer it!" he prompted me, poking me in the ribs with his index finger to get me to actually respond.

"Alright, I get it!" I declared. I held my hands up in surrender until Fred stopped tickling me. "Okay, I'll answer your stupid question." I made a particular emphasis on the word 'stupid'. He leant forwards expectantly. His red hair matched the dim sunset exactly.

"I always thought you were –" his eyes widened slightly. His whole attention was on me. "Hideous." I finished. "You were ginger, and freckly, and I preferred brown eyes." His face fell drastically. I managed to hold it for a few seconds, savouring the few rare seconds where I had made a joke.

"What?" his mournful voice broke me. My laughter didn't stop for a full five minutes. Fred was just sitting there, looking bewildered. He must have thought that I was crazy.

"Nah." I told him when I finally got my composure back. "I actually kind of like red hair now. It has a certain –" I struggled to think of the right word. "– vibrancy to it. And I think that freckles are cute. And, blue eyes are always charming." With the last sentence, on every word I leant in slightly, so that our noses were almost touching.

His eyes were smouldering, dark and they seemed to look straight through me into my soul. There was something in their depths which drew me in. I'd never seen a blue quite like it. They were clear, yet still mysterious; bright but still serious; still for the moment but not dull.

In one sudden movement I closed the small gap between us and pressed my lips to his. I only stayed there for a second, drawing back almost as quickly as I had leant in, but it had felt like much longer.

Although our lips had barely touched, I felt electricity coarse through my entire body, making even my fingers tingle. We stared at each other, and I felt like I wouldn't be able to look away even if I tried.

It was simple, really. It was as cliché as everyone said. It wasn't fireworks though; it was more like dynamite, exploding in colours so bright that they were right off the spectrum. My lips had moulded perfectly to his; our faces fitting together as if we were made for each other.

I looked up, and our eyes met again. Blue and brown, nothing else mattered. The sounds of the birds, the smells of the trees, the coolness of the grass, they all disappeared. It was only me and him.


	17. Wonders will be Investigated

**Again, I'm sorry about the slow update! I've recently started betaing for someone, and I've had lots of panto rehearsals! No excuse, I know, but the next update will be a slow one too; I have the real shows all week. Thanks for sticking with this story - I hope you like this chapter :)  
**

**~flutegirl98  
**

_Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand_** - Neil Armstrong.**

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**__****Disclaimer:** anything (characters, places etc) you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling / Bloomsbury / Scholastic / Warner Bros.

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**Hermione PoV**

The next month flew by in a blur, and soon it was almost time for Percy's wedding. Molly and Ginny had us rushing around the country, buying this and that from the right places, just to get it perfect for the wedding.

Audrey was beginning to look a lot more stressed, too – just two days ago when I had taken her to pick up her dress she had nearly had an emotional breakdown. It had taken me, two shop assistants and several cups of tea to calm her down.

Percy wasn't much better, either. Fred had reported back to me that he had suffered from a similar stress breakdown; he had shown me the bruise on his arm to prove it. Apparently, as soon as Percy set his eyes on the suit he would be wearing for the big day, he had gotten immediate cold feet. It had taken all of Fred's persuasive skills to get him to actually try it on.

I unlocked the back door of the shop and strode inside, chucking my bag on the table on the side and hanging up my coat as I passed. I collapsed onto the squishy orange sofa before sighing deeply. Finally, I had gotten home from my long day at work and now I could relax – at least for the time being. I had just less than an hour.

As usual, the shop was a mess, but this time I was too tired to even attempt to fix it. I had been spending more and more of my free time at the twin's shop; that's what happens when you're engaged to one of the pair.

The back door swung open again and a boy with vivid red hair walked in, their back facing me as they tried to manoeuvre a large box inside. I jumped up immediately, ignoring the screaming of my weary limbs and walked speedily to where he was struggling with the cardboard box.

When I was closer, I could tell that it was George; you got to more of their differences the longer you knew them. Fred had a small freckle on the side of his nose that George didn't have, but George had slightly longer hair to cover his missing ear; this was another obvious clue to tell them apart.

"Do you need some help?" I prompted. George abruptly whirled around, a confrontational expression on his face, but he smiled widely when he saw that it was only me.

"Why, isn't it my favourite soon-to –be sister-in-law?" He greeted as he pulled me into a warm hug. We embraced briefly before I pulled back and looked the box up and down. It was almost a metre square and by the way he had been dragging it along the floor, it was clearly heavy. George sighed next to me.

"Yeah, that'd be great, thanks Hermione." Together, we managed to lug it to the other side of the room to where the shelves full of stock were. I stood up and braced my hands against my back.

"Why didn't you just use your wand?" I asked him as the thought popped into my head. George straightened up too and looked the box over.

"I was too lazy – I left it on the table." He revealed, before proceeding to hack open the box with his bare hands. I looked to my left, and sure enough, sitting on the coffee table, was the broomstick shaped wand that I faintly recognised as his own. I rolled my eyes at his stubbornness.

"Why didn't you use yours?" he pointed out.

"Touché." I approved. "So what have you got there?" I asked, gesturing to the box he had now managed to open. He sat back on his knees and looked inside as he explained.

"It's a new batch of Warbling Wonders for the front of the shop." He told me. So they had decided on the name then. He took out a couple of smaller boxes from the large box and passed them over to me. I took one out of his hands and examined it carefully.

It was only the size of about 4 matchboxes, but the cover said that it held 20 Warbling Wonders. It was a deep purple colour, and it had been charmed so that the neon green text on the top flashed on and off every few seconds. The sides were crammed full of jokes, witty remarks, and product information. If anyone else had put this together, I would have been sceptical, but the twins were great with marketing and really made it work.

"You can try one if you'd like." He prompted me. I scrunched up my nose and passed the product back to him. I'd had enough the first time around.

I smiled at him gratefully. "Nah, I'm alright, thanks." He shrugged but pushed the box back into my hands.

"Keep it, anyway. Test it on your friends or whatever. Advertise it for us!" he beamed at me. I grinned back; his enthusiasm was infectious. I opened my bag and pushed the sweets in, making a mental note to get them out later. Then I stood up with my bag and summoned my coat, sighing.

"Sorry George, I have to go." I told him sadly. "I have another meeting in 10 minutes." He gave me a sympathetic grimace before waving me off and going back to being absorbed in his new products, while I apparated to the Ministry. I changed into my midnight black robes in a nearby muggle bathroom before donning a blank face and walking around the back of the derelict building for the hidden entrance.

This wasn't the usual Ministry entrance; this was one for only the Department of Mysteries employees. They'd created it to avoid any conflict with other workers around our working time, and it led directly to just outside the doors.

It wasn't much to look at, just an old electricity meter at the back of the building, with one door and a minuscule room barely large enough to hold one person. However, it did the trick.

I looked around carefully – not that any muggle would be able to see this – but I'd learnt to be secretive on the job. When I was sure that it was secure, I tapped the padlock with my wand as I muttered the password, and stepped into the grungy grey box. They changed the password every week, but fortunately I had a good memory. Drawing the door closed behind me, I looked around for the correct spot.

There it was – just above my head. It moved every time someone used it, so that only people who knew the secret could enter the Department of Mysteries. Amongst the tangle of blue, red and black wires was a small navy box. I lifted it out of its position and checked that the light on the back was flashing blue – red meant that the Department was closed, which rarely happened.

It was blue, so I swiftly pressed my hand to the wall behind the box so that it could check my fingerprints, and wrote down my name and time of entry in the log book kept inside the box. Of course, the box had a key that only the Unspeakables had access to; we each had one on us at all times, so that nobody else could find out our names.

The log book and fingerprints done, I replaced the box in its previous position and opened the door I had come in from. This time, however, the door opened on a different scene altogether. Gone was the hustle and bustle of the busy London streets, and replacing it was the eerie silence of the Department entrance.

I knocked sharply on the blue door directly ahead of me 4 times, and waited patiently for an answer. It didn't take long, as it almost instantly swung open to accommodate me. The man in the doorway stood aside for me to enter. For all of the security we had above in the entrance, this part was definitely very lax.

"Evening, Newels." I greeted him.

"Hullo, Granger." He replied promptly, smiling at me kindly as he leant over me and closed the door and sealing it with his wand.

Allen Newels was my partner for this season; we swapped around 4 times a year. He was a tall man, over 6 foot, easily. He had a kind face that was etched with wrinkles of age. A pair of light brown eyes looked down at me as we spoke, and his lopsided glasses often had to be pushed up his nose. His dark hair was greying, and there was a small bald patch on the top which you could only see if you were standing directly above him. He wore the same disillusionment robe as I did, but his was worn by years of work.

"I trust you had a bit of a break?" he asked me as we walked along towards the meeting hall. He had to lean down to talk to me slightly, but I didn't mind. I shrugged.

"Not really." I confided. "I had to catch up on some paperwork and then I was helping at the shop." He nodded in sympathy before straightening up again and looking straight forwards towards the open wooden door.

"Two hour breaks don't go as far as they used to." He sighed deeply. He stood aside to let me pass through the old door first and then followed in directly behind me.

The meeting hall had seemed like something out of a science fiction novel the first time I had seen it. No matter how many things I saw in the wizarding world, and how long I had lived in it, I couldn't shake off my muggle heritage.

There were numerous screens around the room, showing us each different section of the department, and each entrance. A couple of workers watched us come in on the screen, and then turned to greet us. A large silver table stretched down the long room, and it was cluttered with many pieces of parchment, maps, and spell books. A trunk full of high level clearance gear for investigations was sitting in the corner, and the rusty padlocks were being closed again by another Unspeakable.

I sat down at my space at the table, pushing old newspapers out of the way and pulling more reports out of my bag. I glanced up at the screens displaying the entrances while I waited for my old partner, and good friend, Nicole to arrive. She usually came through the main ministry, as her boyfriend worked here too and she liked to say hi.

One of the screens lit up briefly as it recognised another worker in its vicinity – it wasn't Nicole, but I kept watching. She soon appeared on the furthest screen to the right, strolling casually towards the doors.

She had a coffee cup in one hand, and she was clutching her overflowing bundle of papers in the other. She and her partner had been given a particularly difficult study this week, and she had volunteered to do the paperwork. Always the over helpful Nicole.

When I looked up at the screen again, she was gone, but it wasn't long before she rounded the wooden door and smiled at me. She plopped down into her seat next to me and the papers burst out of her arms, spreading all around her. She sighed.

"I've been having this problem all week." she told me quietly, before leaning over the table to grab her spilt documents.

Nicole was an exceptionally pretty woman – easily the best looking in the department. She often used this to her advantage – her classic beauty won her many leads in her investigations – most people loved having her as their partner. Apart from Krisem Stopher – but that was a long story.

Her wide blue eyes seemed sadder than usual, and her dark blonde hair was pulled on top of her head in a haphazard bun that was unlike her. She was already in her work robes, but she still wore her favourite converse shoes. She was a year older than me, but we didn't even notice it – we had become fast friends when we had joined together in the same term.

"Hi." I greeted her. "How're you?" She looked at me and sighed again.

"Not so good." she expressed. She shuffled her papers again as a crease formed between her immaculate eyebrows. "I've got a meeting with my new fiancé later." her voice became disgusted at the word fiancé, and her face showed it. I closed my eyes slowly. How stupid of me; I had completely forgotten that people had their matches – ones that they didn't know. I tried to be sympathetic.

"Who is it?" I soothed as we waited for the meeting to get going.

"Remy Carodus." she told me bitterly. Then she straightened up from her slouched position on top of her work and wrung her hands together, around the room as a distraction. "I mean, he's not a bad guy; he has a good job, and he's nice, but he's just not Jhon, you know?" I patted her back.

Jhon Bilsby was her boyfriend of 3 years. They'd been on and off for the first year, but now they were as steady as a married couple – steadier, even. They were the perfect couple – a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff, Head Boy and Head Girl in Hogwarts. That's where they met – her face had lit up as she told me the story. Now, there were rumours circulating around the ministry that he was going to propose soon. Nicole took a deep breath and turned to me.

"Enough about me, what about you? Talking about me just makes me more depressed." she said. I could see it. Her hair wasn't made with the usual enthusiasm, and her make-up had been applied sloppily. Her eyes were red and puffy– if I didn't know better, I would have said that she had been crying. But never, not ever in the year and a half that I had known her, had she cried. That's what made me suspicious.

"This is really hitting you hard, isn't it?" I asked quietly, ignoring her question. Nicole dropped her dismal face into her hands.

"Yes." she whispered through her fingers. My heart broke for her; she sounded distraught. "I love him. I don't know what I'm going to do without him." I went to comfort her put was stopped quickly by a loud cough. I glared to the end of the table to where our Head of Department, Nicolas Pownem was standing, waiting for us all to die down so that he could start the meeting.

"Good." He muttered when I stopped talking, before speaking up louder again so that we could all hear him. "Now, down to today's meeting." I groaned inwardly. Whenever Pownem led the meeting it went on for as twice as long than if someone else was leading it.

"I don't want this meeting to drag on today, so I'll simply say the few basic points." I rolled my eyes. As predicted, those 'basic points' dragged on for almost three quarters of an hour. Nicole and I had started a thumb war underneath the table.

Yes – I know what you'll be thinking – Hermione Granger, slacking from her job?! But the thing is, I know all of these points. They almost always repeat themselves every month, and he left all of the important things until the end. Besides, Newels would always give me the rundown of the speech in 5 minutes. Pownem took a deeper breath and shuffled the papers on his desk; I straightened – this was where the relevant information came in.

"Now, as all of you should know, the most recent ministry law has required us all to be married and to reproduce." There were numerous mutterings and scowls around the table at this. "You are all going to receive one day in the next month in which you may take leave of work to spend time with your engaged." There were a few smiles at the prospect of a day off, but most people were still frowning.

"Moving on." Pownem said promptly. "Schedules." I perked up at this – I hoped that I got a good one this time; last switchover Newels and I got general patrols.

"Puyton and Hawki, Brain Room." He said. The two in question – a pretty dark haired girl and a burly blonde boy – got up with their papers and left. No doubt they would be setting up for observatory work.

"Gyran and Pengouy, Hall of Prophecy." He continued. Chelsea Gyran smiled; the Hall of Prophecy was easily the most interesting division. Chelsea gave me a smile as she passed, which I returned.

"Everone and I, Illusions Study." He called out from his list. We all gave sympathetic looks to Everone – he was an annoying partner, but nobody deserved to have to work with Pownem; he swapped partners every week instead of every term like the rest of us.

"Spenous and Rion, Death Chamber." The two partners groaned. That room was so depressing – I felt bad for them. I always felt the worst when I went in there, because that was where Sirius had died.

"White and Jumish, Space Chamber." Nicole grinned at me before leaving with a wave. The Space Chamber was her favourite division, to reasons that she struggled to explain to me.

"Turnton and Penfor, Love Chamber." Denise Turnton giggled slightly."Be careful." He warned them. Everyone knew what the love room could do to your mind during the week you were working in there.

"Granger and Newells, Time Room." He finalised. The other workers who were away on research duty would be given their roles when they reported in later today – there was still the Mind Room and the Voice Chamber left, plus the few others that I didn't yet have enough clearance for.

I swiftly packed up my parchment, quills and reports and stuffed them into my bag. Newells was doing the same beside me, hurriedly. We both didn't want to be the last people in the room; Pownem could talk anyone's ears off.

I made it out of the room not last, thankfully, as did Newels. I leant against the corridor wall and smiled at him.

"Time Room, huh?" I asked him. "I haven't had that one in months."

He nodded with me. "Same here." He confided. "But Rion says that they've got a good investigation and creation going on at the moment."

I grinned. "Great!" I looked at my watch and groaned. I was supposed to be at the Burrow for dinner ten minutes ago. "Look, Newells, I've really got to go, but I'll meet you first thing tomorrow?" I asked quickly.

"Sure." He replied. "Outside the main doors?" I nodded my agreement before turning and walking away again.

"Bye!" I called over my shoulder. I heard a faint 'goodbye!' in return.

The exit I usually used was occupied for the moment, so I had to settle for waiting, but while I did that I sent my otter patronus on ahead to tell the Weasleys that I would be late.

Finally, the light above the door flashed green, and I stepping inside and retraced my previous steps to get out. Walking into the open air was nice, but it didn't last when I apparated out of there.

I arrived at the Burrow on steady feet and I speedily walked to the door and wretched it open. They hadn't waited for me as I'd told them to – thank goodness – but Fred had saved me a place next to him at the overflowing table.

I slipped into my seat, giving Fred a quick peck on the cheek before leaning forwards to fill up my plate. Fred squeezed my hand underneath the table and I smiled secretly. I liked the way things were going.


	18. Of Course they will be Late

**Oh my merlin! I'm such a bad author! I'm so sorry for this horendously late update! Thanks for sticking with it though ;) Also, check out my new one-shots! :)  
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**~flutegirl98  
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"_Curiouser and curiouser"_**_ - _Alice in Wonderland.  
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**__****Disclaimer:** anything (characters, places etc) you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling / Bloomsbury / Scholastic / Warner Bros.

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**Fred PoV**

Hermione wasn't making it easy for me to keep my hands off her. Every time she kissed me, even if it was only on the cheek, my heart beat a thousand times more than normal. And when she kissed me on the mouth – then, I was truly speechless.

Her kisses brought life back to me, like fresh scents in the breeze. It was incredible – unexplainable, really. These veela traits of mine were more annoying then helpful – why did I want my emotions all hyped up when it only caused me to like Hermione even more? It just made everything that much more complicated.

Yes, that's right, I like Hermione. Quite a bit, actually. Well, when she's my 'mate' or whatever that means, I suppose it's hard not to. Those eyes though, and that face, and _her_. She was perfect – beyond that, in fact.

Her deep chocolate eyes always seemed to stare through me right into my soul, and her wild russet brown hair could never be tamed – just like her, I suppose. She was so smart, and so loyal, and so kind, and so passionate about everything that I couldn't help but like her – I mean, who wouldn't?

All I knew was that I wouldn't be able to hold back for much longer – these chaste kisses were driving me mental with desire, however little she knew it. And she certainly did – she always had a mischievous little smirk on her face when she drew back from a kiss – the little minx.

Today was the day of Percy's wedding to Audrey. She was nice enough – smart and just right for Percy. She was pretty girl that Percy had met in the Ministry – she was the new junior secretary to the minister who had replaced Percy when he moved into his new position as junior assistant.

I remember the day he met her – he came storming home in a huff, all indigent because a newbie was replacing him in the job he had worked so hard to achieve. Bill had to remind him several times that he was still in a higher position than her.

They'd met several times though – they worked together. They were both close workers to the Minister, so you could expect that they would see each other a lot. He hadn't liked her at first – and she felt the same way about him. I didn't know much about it though, but one day he had come home and introduced her to us – as his _girlfriend_. That had surprised quite a few of us.

I groaned as I pulled my weary body out of my warm bed and stumbled over to mine and George's shared bathroom. The warm blast of the shower managed to both wake me up and make me feel even sleepier. I grabbed a towel and dried myself off as I stepped out before letting an impatient George into the room.

He scowled at me as I passed, his mussed up hair clearly showing he had just gotten up himself.

"Selfish prat." he muttered as I passed, me only chuckling in return.

I reached my room and grabbed my jeans and t-shirt; I would change into the smart clothes Percy was forcing me to wear later. I would try to keep out of those stuffy clothes for as long as possible.

Quickly running a comb through my hair to make it look more presentable, I then picked my wand up off the bedside table and hollered a goodbye to George before apparating to the Burrow.

The gate at the end of the garden creaked as I swung its rusted frame inwards. Strolling down the garden path, I noticed that it was suddenly much tidier and – for once – it was gnome free. _That_ rarely happened. I felt sympathetic towards those people who still lived at the Burrow, because they'd probably been forced into tidying the whole house from top to bottom.

A person with a head full of red hair popped their head out of the window before seeing me and ducking back inside. I could hear a clattering as they ran down the stairs and the front door flung open before me.

Standing there, looking very miffed, was Hermione. With _red hair_. Yes, I'll repeat that. She had red hair. Bushy as always, somewhat tamed by a blue hair band, but still red. I stifled a laugh behind my hand as she glared at me.

"Look what your brother did to me!" she yelled. If nobody was awake yet at – I checked the time – 10 o'clock, then they would definitely be awake by now. I lowered my hand and gave her an amused smile, to which she responded to by crossing her arms over her chest.

"Which one?" I smirked. She glowered at me and I took an instinctive step back.

"George, obviously!" she growled. She grabbed a fistful of her own hair and gestured to it, as if I couldn't already tell.

"Well, now we match!" I chirped back.

"This isn't funny!" Hermione wailed. "What am I going to do? I don't know how to change it back?" I shrugged. I knew nothing about hair.

"How did he do it?"

"I think he put it in my shampoo sometime yesterday." she told me as she stood out of the doorway to let me enter the house. "I guess it just dyed my hair when I used it." she told me. She seemed to have lost all of her anger and now seemed resigned to the fact that her hair was going to be red for a while.

"Why don't you just dye it back?" I asked. She shook her head.

"I've tried that. I've charmed it, transfigured it, I've even tried muggle hair dye." she eyed her hair distastefully. "As you can see, it didn't work." I smiled at her back as she walked into the sitting room.

"Do you know how long it's going to be like that?" I asked curiously.

"No." she sounded sad. I sat down on the sagging sofa next to her and slung my arm around her shoulders. She tensed up slightly at my touch but then leaned into me.

"Don't worry." I told her. "You still look beautiful." she blushed; she never like me complimenting her – or, as I called it – telling her the truth.

"Stop it." she said, but I could see her smile.

"Don't you believe me?" I asked, astonished. How could she still not think that she was beautiful? I'd told her so many times, and I don't lie about things like that.

"Well, I'm not, am I?" she shrugged. "I don't really mind; I'd rather be smart than pretty. Being pretty is overrated anyway – I want to be judged on what I've actually worked for than on how I look – I've had no say in that."

I listened to her speech, dumbstruck. Did she really think that she wasn't beautiful? And was she implying that I only saw what was on the outside. I felt a little hurt at that, but I brushed it off. It was probably just my veela emotions heightening my normal ones.

Turning her head to look at me, I positioned myself so that I could look at her right in the eyes without straining my neck.

"But you _are_ beautiful, Hermione, you are. Inside and out." I began. She sighed. "No, really." I insisted. "You're loyal, talented, amazingly smart!" she smiled at this. "You're funny, you're the kindest person I know, you're imaginative, you're unique. You're you." her smile grew with every word I said. "You're beautiful, Hermione, inside and out." I shrugged. "Sure, you're not the most conventional beauty, but your inner self reflects on the outside, and you outshine everything else. I can't see anyone else when you're there." I finished my long speech at last and she smiled shyly at me, before leaning forwards and enclosing me in a warm hug.

"Thank you, Fred." she whispered softly. "That was really sweet." I stroked her rouge hair gently. "But I'm not funny." I could hear the smirk in her voice and I could see it on her face when I drew back sharply from out hug.

"Of course you are!" I cried, outraged. "Don't you remember that joke you made last week? George thought that I'd had too many Giggling Gummies." I chuckled at the memory.

"Oh, you mean the one about the Jobberknolls and the Kelpie?" she reminisced, and amused look forming on her face. "It wasn't that funny!"

"It was!"

"Wasn't."

"Was!"

"Wasn't!"

"Was!"

"Was!"

"Wasn't!"

"Aha ha! Got you." Hermione smiled. She always managed to trick me in situations like this. "Told you it wasn't that funny." I rolled my eyes and we both sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes.

Then I looked at her – I mean, looked at her properly. I hadn't really noticed anything but her hair when I saw her for the first time today.

She was wearing a long purple dress that clinched in at the waist and fell in ripples down to her feet, where I could see matching silver heels. Her arms were left bare, save for a small silver bracelet that I never saw her without.

She hadn't been found by Ginny yet – that, I could tell. Her face was still blessedly make-up free and her hair was in its natural curls. She looked beautiful, so I told her so. She just murmured to let me know that she had heard me.

I took one of her hands in my own. I loved her hands. On her right hand she had a light indent on her ring finger, a sign of holding a quill many hours of the day. Her nails were short, but well filed, and today she had coated them with a shimmery silver varnish. On her left hand her pinkie was slightly crooked at the end, from where she had broken it playing games as a small kid. She had a couple of smalls on either hand, and a single freckle sat on the middle of her right index finger.

"Hermione. You _are_ beautiful. How many times do I need to tell you so? I'll tell you a million times if it'll make you believe it." I earnestly told her. Before she could reply, I heard a pair of footsteps thundering their way down the Burrow's rickety stairs.

"Hermione!" Ginny's voice came calling. "Where are you? I need to do your make-up!" Hermione groaned, pulling her hands out of mine and covering her face with them as my baby sister jumped into the room. She soon spotted Hermione and leaped over to her, dragging her out of the room and only uttering a brief greeting to me.

"Okay then." I muttered, mostly to myself. "I'm not your brother or anything." I sighed when I saw that they weren't going to come back any time soon, and stood up from the warm sofa, stretching my limbs with slight reluctance.

I wandered outside to see if I could help mum with anything but, very surprisingly, all of the jobs were already done. She told me that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed near the Burrow – she didn't want me to be late for the wedding. As if – I had impeccable timing! Well, maybe I _was_ a bit late for a few things last year... or all of the things last year. I blame George.

The small meadow was used to use as a quidditch pitch was, thankfully, still there. With all of the wedding preparations mum was going to I was getting really worried that she would get to this place too.

My Cleensweep 7 was still pretty much functional – aside from the metal chain still attached to it. I'd never gotten around to removing it, and now I kept it on just for good times sakes. I wasn't entirely sure I knew how to remove it, anyway. It wasn't _too_ much of a hazard – as long as no one walked directly beneath me while I was flying, they'd be fine.

I straddled my broom before jumping off of the moist ground and zooming into the air. This was my favourite part of flying; the feeling of weightlessness, as if nothing could touch you. The air whipped past me as I flew in laps around the field, tangling up my hair and chapping my lips, but I didn't care.

I drew up slightly, hovering with the Burrow in the distance to the left and countless acres of other fields on my right. Sitting up here, I could see for miles from where I was up above the trees. I could stay here for hours, but I couldn't.

Zooming around the field in a few more laps and tricks, I shot a few clumps of grass through the quidditch hoops as my makeshift quaffles. Most of them missed; I was only good at beating, really. I glanced at my watch and my eyebrows shot up at the time. I was going to miss Percy's wedding if I didn't hurry up. That, and mum would kill me.

I flew back to the house at breakneck speed and drew to a halt just outside my old room's window. Not bothering to look inside, I pulled up the rusty latch and opened the window.

A shriek came from inside the room. I jumped, not only banging my head on the window frame as I ducked into the room, but also toppling over due to the fact that I had only one leg on solid ground: the other leg was balanced precariously on my old broom.

Consequently, I fell flat on my back onto the hard floorboards and my eyes squeezed shut at the impact. When I reopened my eyes after a few brief seconds, I was staring right up into a surprised Hermione's face. She was clad in only a maroon towel that I briefly recognised as one of the Burrow's own.

She stood over me, holding her towel closed, her unnatural red hair dripping onto my face. I smiled crookedly up at her, still a little dazed from the fall.

"Nice view." I told her confoundedly. Her eyebrows shot up at this, and she automatically stepped back, drawing her towel even closer to her body; if that was possible.

"What." She sharply said. "Are you doing here?" she enunciated each word clearly, and she poked me in the side with her toe. I wondered for a moment why her toes were a peculiar colour. Then it dawned on me that she was wearing purple nail varnish. I think I had a concussion.

"Err – " I tried to begin. Honestly, I couldn't think of a reason in my befuddled state.

"Never mind." She swiftly cut me off. She prodded me in the side again with her foot. I winced, and realised that I did have a concussion. The reflex to move away from her annoying foot had caused me to jerk my head; and I recognised the symptoms of a concussion from many years of Quidditch playing. As a beater, you practically became the team's healers with all of your experience. I groaned.

"Out." She demanded. "Get out, out out out!" she started trying to push me out of the room with only her foot, her wand lying forgotten on the bedside table. I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up onto my feet, clutching at the window frame to keep my balance. I shook my head to clear it, but that just made me even dizzier.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at me, looking pointedly at the door, and I dutifully trooped over to it. I turned as I opened it, and saw that Hermione was still standing in the same place I had left her. She had her small hand over her mouth and her eyes were creased at the corners. She looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh.

I looked down at my body and checked for anything that could cause me embarrassment. "What?" I queried. Hermione merely shrugged, walking over to me before practically shoving me out of the room and slamming the door behind me. I heard a peal of loud laughter from inside my old room, only partially muffled by the door.

_Girls_. I thought. I'd probably never find out about what she was laughing about.

Although I was curious as to why she was using mine and George's old room, I let it be and descended the stairs to the communal bathroom. Thankfully, nobody was inside, but there was still a faint mist of lavender scented water vapour hanging around in the aftermath of Hermione's shower.

I locked the door firmly behind me with the aid of the latch and a few other spells. I wasn't about to be interrupted when I had this little time. If I was having to rush just to put a suit on, I wondered how Hermione was going to cope with the dress and the make-up and everything else girls do.

The suit had previously been ironed and pressed by mum before she sent it to me, but that had all gone down the drain now. She should be happy that I was a least wearing a suit. She knew how I couldn't stand them.

I reluctantly pulled it on and set about to fixing my tie. Merlin knows how other people managed to do it on their own. The mirror wasn't helping much, as I only succeeded in confusing myself with which way was which.

Giving up, I checked the time before racing downstairs, holding my shoes in one hand and my socks in the other, my undone tie hanging around my neck. Fortunately for me, only George was in the living room waiting for me; the others must have gone down to the local church to greet our guests.

"You're nice and prompt, aren't you?" he smirked.

"Oh, shut up." I told him as I sat down on the sofa and hurriedly pulled on my shoes, forgoing the socks. George leant me a hand and pulled me up out of the very squishy sofa, and we walked together towards the door.

"We're going to have to apparated there." He told me. "There isn't enough time for anything else." He looked at me sneakily out of the corner of his eye as he appeared to survey our surroundings. "Mum is going to kill us. I groaned again.

"I know." I looked up at the sky as we began walking, and I could see that it was a dismal blue. Perfect, just perfect. It was likely to start raining even before George and I got to the apparition point outside the gate.

Sure enough, just like my prediction, the heavens opened about our heads and torrents of cold rain came pouring out, swirling around our heads and making puddles everywhere we stepped.

Just as I reached for the gate I heard a shout. I looked to George, whose face mirrored the confuse look that must have been on mine. "What was –" he began.

"That?" I finished. We both looked up to where the sound had come from, me shielding my eyes against the fierce onslaught of the rain. We were getting soaked.

There, hanging halfway out of third floor window I had entered the house by only 10 minutes before. Her long hair was dangling loose and I could just about see that she had changed out of her towel and into a pretty dress. Damn it.

"Fred! George!" she shouted down to us. "Wait for me!" with those last words she ducked her head back out of the window, disappearing and leaving George and I standing there flummoxed, in the downpour. We looked at each other and shrugged simultaneously. We were in trouble as it was; of course we'd wait for Hermione. Prankster's honour.

The back door of the Burrow swung open again and Hermione ducked out. She carried a lime green umbrella to protect herself from the rain, although her hair was already drenched from her little window excursion earlier. She jogged over to us – no easy feat wearing 3 inch heels as she was through the mud – and stopped when she stood next to me. She beamed brightly.

"Thanks for waiting for me." She said. "I don't know the way to the church, but I'm assuming you do."

"Of course we do, Granger!" George grinned. "Who do you mistake us for?" Hermione smiled gratefully and I offered her my arm.

"Shall we?" she took my arm and George's on the other side and we all made a big show of strolling down to the gate leisurely. We were now all dripping wet and the wedding had probably already started, but at that moment I didn't care. I was happy.

Hermione wiped her face with her hand and grimaced as she came away with a black smudge streaked across her palm. She cursed.

"Damn it. Ginny's going to murder me. She took all of that time doing that make-up, and then I decided to have a shower after all, and now this." She sighed exasperatedly. I looked her in the eyes and tilted her head up before pressing a soft kiss to her damp forehead.

"You still look beautiful to me." I said quietly, as George made retching noises in the background. Hermione smiled gently.

"Thank you, Fred." She looked at her watch and gave a small shriek. "We need to go!" George rolled his eyes.

"That's what we've been trying to tell you all along!"


	19. Feelings will be Realised

**Disclaimer: **I don't, and never will, own any of anything you recognise in this story. They all belong to (the wonderful) J.K. Rowling.

**Note: **This chapter is split into both Fred and Hermione's point of view for the same scene. I wanted to portray both of their emotions here. I found it much easier to write Fred's PoV, actually – he seems to have a more casual voice than Hermione. The conversation from Hermione is basically what I think – somewhere to output my thoughts!

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**Hermione PoV**

The wedding went smoothly, thank Merlin, and not too many people noticed our late entry. We did get a bit of a telling off from Molly - we were all suitably abashed, but then she just went straight back to crying about her son getting married. Honestly, I don't really see why mothers are always like this, but I guess it's just a maternal thing. I'll probably do it when I have my own kids. Knowing me, I'll also be an emotional wreck.

Speaking of emotional wrecks, you should have seen Audrey's parents. Her dad was blubbering into a silk handkerchief, and her mum was trying to comfort him while still crying herself. It was endearing, really. I just wished that when I got married I could have my parents there.

I'm at the reception now, standing by the drinks table with a glass of champagne in one hand and my wand in the other, all alone. Ginny was off with Luna squealing about Audrey's new marital status; Harry was busy sending a patronus to the auror's office, even though he was off duty; Ron was by the food table, predictably stuffing his face with the free food; and Fred and the others were all congratulating Percy.

I sighed, and pointed my wand at my champagne glass, magically refilling it from the bottle on the table without having to move. I made as to take a sip of the drink, but a hand stopped me.

"Oh, no you don't." the vaguely familiar voice said into my ear. "You've already had three." Then the pesky hand took the glass right out of my clutches and placed it on the table behind up. I dimly registered the words as being true, and I could hear my sub-conscious screaming at me from the back of my mind, but I was cross. And lonely.

"What?" I snapped. "Give me back my drink!" I struggled against the hands that had now wrapped themselves around my waist, trying to twist in the mysterious person's firm grip. They turned me around in their arms and tilted my head up so that I would have to look into their eyes. I feebly resisted against them, tucking my chin down into my neck as one last sign of defiance.

With a sigh, the person holding me pulled my head up, hard enough that I couldn't oppose, but gentle enough that it didn't hurt me. I looked to my left, and they leant that way to get into my sight, but I just looked the other way. Somewhere in my head, I knew that I was being stupid, but at the moment I just didn't care.

I looked a wreck; my hair and dress were soaked; my shoes and the hem of my dress were coated in mud, and my cheeks were smeared with mascara stains. I was a sight to behold.

The man with his arms around me – I had worked out that much – growled slightly and pulled me closer to him sharply. He bent his head down so that his mouth was next to my ear.

"It's me, Hermione, its Fred." I almost collapsed in relief; just the person I had been craving all evening. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my mouth firmly to his. Fred quickly pulled away and I could see my disappointment reflected in his own blue eyes. I pouted – something I only did when I was drunk, I realised groggily.

"Come on," Fred said as he unwrapped my arms from where they had been strangling his neck and put an arm over my shoulders. "Let's get you home." Suddenly I didn't even have the energy to protest anymore.

We apparated, managing to avoid any splinching, though I did feel a bit sick by the end of it. I took a large gulp of fresh air before stumbling up the steep stairs. It was only when I opened the door that I realised that it wasn't the Burrow I had stumbled into; it was the twins' apartment.

"You should go inside." A voice suggested from behind me. His hand pressed into the small of my back and guided me inside to the bright living room. The room spun before my eyes as I walked further into the flat, and I kept one hand on the left hand wall just to keep my balance, Fred holding my elbow at my other side.

He led me to the nearest door on the right, which my muddled brain vaguely recognised to be Fred's bedroom. My mind was asking why I was going in there, but my body just wanted a warm bed to curl up in.

My knees buckled and gave way and I almost fell onto the floor, but Fred caught me and lifted me onto the soft bed, on top of the covers but I didn't care. Fred eased me off the duvet and then tucked me under them, pulling the orange covers up to my chin to make sure that I was warm. He gave me a smile, one that I loved; crooked, his teeth showing – the one reserved just for me. And notice I use the word 'gave' me a smile, because that's what he did. He gave the smile to me, and I bottled them all up in my heart.

The bed creaked as he sat down next to me and I smiled giddily up at him. I watched without speaking as his hand reached out and hesitantly brushed the stray hairs out of my eyes. I blinked slowly, sleepily and closed them softly for a few second before opening my eyes up again to see Fred smiling gently down at me.

"Goodnight." He whispered, before placing his hands on his thighs and stood up, sighing like an old man. He was almost at the door when I stopped him.

"-wait!" I called out. Fred turned, his hand on the doorknob. He looked at me expectantly. "Don't go." I pleaded. "Just stay." Fred closed the door behind him and came to sit next to me in the bed. His back was against the headboard and his long legs spread over halfway along the bed. He pulled me to him and I snuggled into his side, tucking my head under his arm and wrapping my arms around his waist.

"You should go to sleep." He whispered into my ear. His breath subtly moved my hair and it ticked my ear. I giggled quietly.

"Okay." We stayed there in silence for a few more minutes, Fred's heartbeat slowing until it matched mine. I tilted my head up and looked at Fred. His eyes were closed and his red eyelashes left shadows fluttering across his face. His breathing was regular, each breath out causing a piece of hair over his eyes to move up, and then back down on each breath in. It was endearing, really.

"Fred?" I whispered. His eyes quivered and opened fully. His deep blue eyes looked down at me curiously, his eyes asking the question. "Do you think we'll ever find love?" I asked. It was the kind of question I wasn't really conscious of asking, and it was more like it just transferred right from my thoughts to my mouth. Fred raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" he replied. For some reason we were both talking in hushed voices, not raising our voices above a predefined volume. I yawned and relaxed my head back into the crook of his arm.

"What if this law is never abolished? What if we never actually get to find out what love is like for ourselves. Have you ever thought about that?" Fred looked down at me. I could almost imagine a sad look on his face, but that would make no sense.

"No, I've never thought about it that way." He admitted after a pause. "But I like to believe that anything could happen. Sure, we don't get to find out about love in the usual way, but maybe this is a gateway to the rest of our lives?" this was getting into a much deeper conversation then I had anticipated I shuffled slightly and sat up more.

"I mean, I wanted to explore life. Go one a few dates with different people. Live my life a little. I just want to love, you know? I've read all of these books and I think – I'll never have that. Nobody has that. It's all made up, too good to be true. I want love. Proper, story book, romantic love. I know that'll sound cheesy and everything, but what if nobody ever loves me? What if I end up alone, just married to obey a law? It's not like anyone's ever shown any interest in me." Fred made a move as to speak at this point but I cut him off. I wasn't finished.

"All of those stories out there sound so romantic. How they all have stories and always end up together. And how they're always perfect for each other. I want what they have. Now my choice has been taken away and all I want is my freedom. I just never realised how much I valued it until now." My words sounded so sad – I wondered if I was depressing Fred.

"I see what you mean." He contemplated. "But isn't this more realistic. Everyone has their own story, they're just all different. You have to accept what comes and love it." He took a breath before looking into my eyes with the most intensity I had ever seen in them and speaking again. "The thing is, if you love someone, it doesn't matter how you got there." He looked away again and ran a hand through his ginger tresses.

"But don't you think that everyone feels this way too?" he asked me insightfully, continuing to talk. I mulled over this thought for a little while. He had a point.

"I suppose." I admitted. "But Ginny doesn't exactly have trouble with men, does she?" I was comparing my entire theory to one girl, but it wasn't like I had many other girls to reference with. And Luna wasn't exactly the most ordinary of them all.

He smirked at me. "Yeah, but she's a Weasley. All Weasleys are so attractive that they're just too hard to resist." He was grinning by the end of it. Then his smile flipped over and dropped into a frown. "Apart from Ron. But everything has an exception." I snorted ungracefully at this. I waited for a few seconds but he didn't seem to be about to talk again anytime soon. I took this as a sign to continue, and launched into a thought that had haunted me for years, but I'd never had the courage to express. What a Gryffindor I was.

"But what if someone doesn't want me? I'm not the nicest person, or the funniest, or the prettiest. The one thing I have got – my brains – probably isn't anyone near the top in the world. There's always going to be someone better than me, so what makes me different. I'm just another number, another person. I'm here and I'll go soon without making so much as a dent in history. I'm just me. Hermione Granger. Nothing special, nothing more." Fred was silent beside me as I ranted my life's frustrations out to him. I'd always thought this, long before now, since I was at least 13.

"How could anyone want me now? I'm scarred. Not only physically, but emotionally. I still have nightmares; I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes. Who would want someone who isn't whole? And you, you're stuck with me now. You deserve someone better. Someone whole. Someone who will make you laugh." I let out a long breath and lay back down on the pillows. I could see Fred as still as a statue above me, his face betraying no emotion and his chest moving being the only indicator that he was still alive. His eyes were closed again, so I couldn't even tell if he was awake let alone listening to me. I settled down under the covers and sighed to myself.

"I want to be able to make you laugh." I told him just before I drifted off. The last thing I saw before the alcohol pulled me into blackness was two blue eyes staring at me in what almost looked like affection. Which was wrong, because affection was only for people in love – right?

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**Fred PoV**

It might sound weird, but I liked watching her, just watching her. Watching the way she moved, the way she spoke. The way she _laughed_.

I could still picture her as the mousy little First Year that I had met for the first time many years ago. Her eyes had been so full of happiness and determination to do well – that was just after she was sorted into Gryffindor. Looking back on those memories, it was startling to see how much she had been forced to grow, and in such little time. Not only physically, but mentally also.

With all the pressure being put on her – not just school work, but being Harry's best friend – we all thought that she would crack. But she never did. She was a solid stone in the trio's relationship, a steady stance that never wavered. While she and Ron had their fights, as did Ron and Harry (well, my little brother can be very stupid), she never broke down. At least not publically, anyway.

I did find her one time at the end of her Fifth Year – just before George and I hopped the brooms and did a bunk. She had clearly been crying, but when I got to her she was just sitting there in a hidden alcove, staring resolutely at the wall ahead of her, never moving her eyes or any other part of her body.

It had broken my heart a little to see her like that, so broken down. I think that was when I started to feel for her, but I never really noticed it let alone acted on it, because we left less than a week later. It's always going to be a regret of mine that I wasn't there to help her through that difficult time when she was so clearly stressed, but there was nothing I could do about it. In some of Harry's latter letters to us – mainly business, but sometimes personal – he told us that it was just another Ron and Hermione fight, only bigger this time. I just guessed that it would have been something to d with hormones and O.W.L.s – we were all like that in our Fifth Years.

She was now standing in a gorgeous dress that made me melt a little inside (how sappy do I sound?), and even though her make up was ruined she still looked amazing. Now, at the bar of my older brother's wedding, she was standing there, all on her alone, with the most pitiful look on her face that I had ever seen. He wand was held loosely in one hand her third – yes, third – glass of champagne was held in her other hand. As I watched, she glugged that one down in two swallows and pulled up her wand to refill it yet again.

My hand was there stopping her before I even noticed what I was doing. I didn't even remember to make up an excuse to leave the boys.

"Oh, no you don't." I had told her off. She didn't need any more alcohol in her system. "You've already had three." Then I took the drink from her and placed it on the table behind us before slinking my arms around her waist. I didn't really need to do that, but, honestly, I just liked the feeling of her in my arms and I'd take up and opportunity to do so. She struggled against me, verbally and physically, before had I relented and told her that it was me (didn't she recognise me?) before leading her to the apparition point in the back corner of the church.

The apparition was difficult, but thankfully not too messy. I'd had to side-along apparated people less drunk than she was and, let me tell you now; it's not a fun thing to clean up after.

There was a bit of mumbling on her side before she had let me lead her indoors. I took her to my bedroom (no, not what you're thinking – I couldn't very well take her to George's, now could I?) and laid her onto my bed. I lifted her into bed gently and she squirmed beneath the covers. Her hair had fallen out of its strict updo and was now lying in its natural curls all around her head. She looked like an angel with a halo of hair, despite the panda eyes she was currently harbouring.

Then she asked the question.

"Do you think we'll ever find love?" well that was unexpected. I'd just settled down to a nice nap when she asks that whopper. Now I'd have to think before speaking!

'What to say about love' – I thought. I couldn't exactly tell her that she was my mate and I fancied the pants off of her, so that was out of the window. Fancy isn't exactly the right word to be using though, is it? It seems a bit weak, a bit silly, like some school girl's crush. It was more than that, definitely. She was my mate, and though I didn't know as much about that as I'd like to at the present moment, I at least knew it. Not that Fleur had relented into telling e any new information. As eager as she had seemed to help at first, she seemed to be avoiding me. That, or Bill decided to enact upon his threat of taking her on a long, _long _holiday if I pestered her too much. Thinking about it now, I haven't seen the two recently. Maybe the really have gone back to Paris for their first real honeymoon without a war overshadowing it.

This was insanity, this question was. How was I supposed to answer this when I'd already found it?

I decided for the safest route to answer her question.

"What do you mean?" I asked her; after all, it was an odd question to be voicing in the first place. She yawned – a big, cat like on, her pink tongue stretching out and licking her lips before she closed her mouth again and leant against me. My arm tightened around her as she spoke. Her voice was so captivating; it just drew me in and left me helpless.

"What if this law is never abolished? What if we never actually get to find out what love is like for ourselves. Have you ever thought about that?" and I did think. It took me quite a while to answer, actually – it was that deep of a question. Or I was just so tired that my mind wasn't thinking straight. I prefer to go with the first one; it makes me sound like more of an intellectual.

"No, I've never thought about it that way." That much was true. I mean, I was a boy; I didn't exactly think about love, did I? Sure, I'd contemplated the idea of finding that one perfect girl, but I'd never really given it much thought. The way she put it though – it sounded almost scary.

"But I like to believe that anything could happen. Sure, we don't get to find out about love in the usual way, but maybe this is a gateway to the rest of our lives?" I had no idea where that just came from. My mouth just seemed to spew words on auto-pilot. The words sounded true, though. Maybe this marriage would help Hermione to know what she was looking for – me, I'd already found it.

I felt Hermione wiggle next to me as she got into a more comfortable position before she began talking again. I didn't mind; I loved the sound of her voice.

"I mean, I wanted to explore life. Go one a few dates with different people. Live my life a little. I just want to love, you know? I've read all of these books and I think – I'll never have that. Nobody has that. It's all made up, too good to be true. I want love. Proper, story book, romantic love." I listened to her in silence. This was a lot to take in. "I know that'll sound cheesy and everything, but what if nobody ever loves me? What if I end up alone, just married to obey a law? It's not like anyone's ever shown any interest in me." I opened my mouth to tell her the exact opposite of that but she cut me off by continuing to talk.

"All of those stories out there sound so romantic. How they all have stories and always end up together. And how they're always perfect for each other. I want what they have. Now my choice has been taken away and all I want is my freedom. I just never realised how much I valued it until now." She sounded so sad – and I could see it on her face, too. Was she really that affected by it? I'd never realised until now.

And at that moment, I made a vow to do whatever I could to make her happy.

"I see what you mean." I said. I really did. "But isn't this more realistic. Everyone has their own story, they're just all different. You have to accept what comes and love it." I took a long breath before looking into her eyes. They were still the beautiful chocolate brown that was now my favourite colour (I wonder how that happened?), and they were sparkling with an emotion that I couldn't recognise. What was it about eyes being windows to the souls?

"The thing is, if you love someone, it doesn't matter how you got there." I broke my eyes away from her and ran my hand through my hair. It was something I usually did when I was nervous; George got the foot tapping, I got the hair combing. We were an attractive pair, us two.

"But don't you think that everyone feels this way too?" I asked her astutely. I was quite proud of that line, and it wasn't often I was proud of things that I said. It was normally the opposite, actually. For once I had a perfectly valid point!

"I suppose." she confessed. Her face was the picture of confusion and unhappiness. "But Ginny doesn't exactly have trouble with men, does she?" So she was comparing her love life to my sisters? She didn't need to put that picture in my head.

I smirked suavely at her. "Yeah, but she's a Weasley." As if she didn't already know. "All Weasleys are so attractive that they're just too hard to resist." It was just so obvious – and I was making her blush! My beam was massive purely thanks to this miniscule amount of colour to her cheeks. Then I was struck by a sudden thought. "Apart from Ron." I reminded her. "But everything has an exception." she snorted at this. Even though it wasn't even a proper laugh, it still made my heart speed up. It was just such a beautiful sound – so beautiful, it almost hurt. Yes, I know it's only a snort, but I'm weird like that.

And yes, I know I'm whipped, but I really don't care. I know what you're probably thinking - Merlin Fred, you've only properly talked to this witch for like a week and you think you love her? But hold up there, wait just a second – I never said that I loved her. I don't know if I'm there yet. Close, but not quite there. Heightened veela emotions plus a mate makes your love life a little weirder, you know?

"But what if someone doesn't want me?" she began. I looked up in horror at this. Who wouldn't want her? Not only me, but I'd seen numerous men looking her up when she's just walking around the streets. Someone not wanting her, my derrière.

"I'm not the nicest person, or the funniest, or the prettiest. The one thing I have got – my brains – probably isn't anyone near the top in the world. There's always going to be someone better than me, so what makes me different. I'm just another number, another person. I'm here and I'll go soon without making so much as a smudge in history. I'm just me. Hermione Granger. Nothing special, nothing more."

How could she think this? She was the kindest person I knew, apart from my mum, but there goes; she was funny, in her own way – you just had to learn to get her style. It wasn't the conventional type of amusement, but she was still great fun. Her pranks were almost as good as George and I's with that brain of hers, and that's saying something. And she was gorgeous. Nothing else needed to be said about that. Yes, there was always someone better out there, but that was life; I'd just learnt to accept it.

But what I didn't get, what really confused me, was that she thought that she was a nobody. She was better than anyone else I knew. She was Hermione Granger. The Hermione Granger. You know, the one who was a vital part in the defeat of Voldemort. I'm sure you've heard of her. Although she was right – she wouldn't make a smudge in history – she would make a dent. She'd have pages to herself, as the brains of the Golden Trio. They were sure to have failed without her (no offence intended Harry, Ron).

She started off again as I was still thinking. "How could anyone want me now? I'm scarred. Not only physically, but emotionally. I still have nightmares; I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes." Whatever way she was trying to portray this, it just made me want to protect her even more. To help her.

"Who would want someone who isn't whole? And you, you're stuck with me now. You deserve someone better. Someone whole. Someone who will make you laugh." She drew out a shuddering breath and lay back down on the pillows. I was a block of rock just sitting there, my face frozen and my body still. I deserved someone _better_? Than her? Was that even possible. She squirmed underneath the covers and sighed. I was about to fall asleep myself when I heard her soft voice again.

"I want to be able to make you laugh." My eyes snapped open. Bugger this. I'm definitely in love with her now.

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**A/N: **I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so sorry! (so sorry that I wrote all of those SOs out and didn't copy them! I did spell sos though...) SORRY! I meant to write but when I looked at this a month had gone by! :O I've kind of been stuck on a next generation faze at the moment. But I did write more than normal... so here you go!

Also, you may have noticed that I have changed my penname (I hope it doesn't confuse my few followers!) to titaniumroze... my friend and I came up with it in Chemistry and it stuck!

So, anyway, thanks so much for sticking with this story and I hope that you forgive me for such a late update!

Don't forget to **review**!

~titaniumroze


	20. One will be Gone

**Hermione PoV**

"So let me get this right. You're dating the guy in your head, but according to the Ministry you're engaged?" Allie questioned me.

Allie was yet another work friend, one that had been on call during our last meeting. She was practically the stark opposite of our other friend, Nicole. She had shiny raven black hair that was styled into a short pixie cut – not that she understood why I called it that. She and Nicole thought that pixie style meant dying your hair blue. She had sharp brown eyes that were so dark they were almost black, sometimes sparkling with mirth, sometimes showing a glint of her wit. Her skin was always tanned, much to the jealousy of my paler friend, and her chin was always set for an argument.

Her personality matched her look to the tee – sharp, witty, clever. She was always up for a debate, not that they were friendly. She was the most confident person I had ever had the joy of meeting, and she wasn't afraid to stand up for what was right. That's how she got the job; she stood up for women's rights in the Ministry and they gave her this job to keep her quiet. Allie had always regretted taking the job, but she'd moved past it and we all agreed that'd she'd certainly earned it – a lot more than some of the people working here. Anyway, she loved it. If she had never joined our department, then she'd have never been able to meet us.

What had surprised me about her was that she was a Slytherin. It made sense when you thought about it, as she had razor-sharp tongue, and her ambitions were high. She always had to speak her way, and I would definitely describe her as cunning. You should have seen some of the plans she had drawn up for one of the scouting plans we were going to try last month.

We were currently sitting in one of our favourite places, in the half hour before I had a shift and she had to be back home to babysit her niece and nephew. It was quite a chic place – or at least I thought so. The lighting was a bright blue, and it sent a slightly violet tinge to everything, glinting of Allie's hair and making that look blue too, much like what she thought a pixie cut really was. The table we were sitting at was small and round, and our legs were rather cramped, but we had hot coffee and warm biscuits so we weren't about to complain.

"Yes." I answered her after thinking her words through. "But it's a little more complicated than that." Allie cocked an eyebrow at me. "Well, it's just that we have so much pressure to fall in love. I mean, if we don't, we're doomed to a life of sadness, really. I really like Fred, but I don't know if it's me or the Ministry talking, you know?" Allie nodded at my words.

"I know exactly what you mean." She agreed. "But at least your guy isn't a jerk." She was scowling as she said it, and I laughed at the expression on her face.

"Come on, Ed isn't _that_ bad." I nudged her.

"Edward Shagit is not called _Ed_, Hermione." She mocked scathingly. "His name is Edward and he is a jerk. I do have stronger words for it if you want me to say them." I shook my head hurriedly. We were n a public place, and I didn't want to get thrown out of something again due to words uttered by the elusive Allie Lambton. She huffed and crossed her arms. Honestly, her and her attitudes amused me more than anything else. "At least you don't have to marry the guy. _I _do." She glowered. I rolled my eyes at her; I was used to her snark. "But seriously." She turned to me. "Think about his name. It has the word _shag_ and _git_ in it. Surely that doesn't reflect well on the guy?"

"He just has the misfortune of a bad name." I tried diplomatically. "It's not like he chose it or anything."

Allie frowned into her drink. "I bet he did." She murmured.

"So just because he works in the Department of Magical Games and Sports!" I cried. Sometimes Slytherins could be so prejudiced.

"Yes, and you know how they are! Players, the lot of them! He'd probably cheat on me at the first opportunity he could get, I wouldn't be allowed to divorce him, and I'd probably contract an STD from all of the whores he was shagging!" That was Allie, crudeness in a bottle. I sighed. It was no use trying to get through to her sometimes.

"Sure." I gave up, resigned to whatever tangent she was about to go off on about her new fiancé. Apparently as soon as she got that day of work she was immigrating to South Georgia to live with the penguins. However, to my surprise, she dropped the subject rather quickly. Instead, she chose to talk about my new found relationship.

"And you're absolutely sure you're not it love with him?" she clarified, asking for what felt like the quadrillionth time that day. I stirred some more sugar into my coffee and took another sip.

"Yes, I'm sure!" I told her exasperatedly. "I barely know the guy!"

"Then why are you dating? You never date guys you haven't been friends with first." She pointed out. That much was true; unless I knew the guy, then there was no date. The only problem with my method was that I almost always lost a friend when we broke up. Although, I'd only had five dates since I'd graduated, one of them a disastrous blind date set up by Ginny. Needless to say most of them were awkward and uncomfortable. On the other hand, it did clear things up with a few friends – we worked out that we weren't interested in each other romantically, and it had created a great story to laugh about over a coffee.

I contemplated her thought. While I had certainly known _of_ Fred for years, ever since I became proper friends with Ron, I didn't really know him. Sure, we'd have the small talk conversation once in a while, or me telling him off for testing products on First Years and him asking me to pass the jam. Not much to base your future life on, is it?

"You're right." I shrugged. She almost looked shocked. "I don't know him that well. But what better way to get to know him than going on a date or few?" it was clearly a rhetorical questions, so Allie didn't answer and I continued. "We're not just going to magically fall in love, but I at least want to feel a little bit more comfortable with him before we get married and... you know..." I finished awkwardly and looked up to see a slightly scary grin on Allie's face.

"Do the deed." She finished for me. I blushed, although she was thankfully being a lot more sophisticated than she usually was.

"Yep." I summarised quietly. To tell you the truth, I was terrified about that very thing. Allie would be fine, as she'd already slept with the guy she was going to marry. Yes, she had been drunk, and he took advantage on her – how did you think he got the jerk status? Nicole, too, would at least be better than me. She'd slept with someone before. Admittedly, only one person, Jhon, but it was still something. Me? Never. Not really surprising; the prude, pure Hermione Granger never having had sex? It made sense. It wasn't like I'd had the opportunity to, either.

"I do know exactly what you mean, though. It'd be nice to know the guy a little." She frowned then. "If it wasn't a guy like Edward." I looked at her for a minute, registering the more-grumpy-than-usual look on her face.

"You know, I heard that you can appeal to get your partner changed for special circumstances." I told her coyly. Truth be told, I'd only heard rumours, but Percy had pretty much confirmed them for us. None of the Weasleys (that seemed to include me) were going in to get it changed, as we knew that it would just draw more attention to your case. This would just be complicated in the future, as they would be watching you more carefully – to make sure you consummated your marriage, even. Fred and I didn't want any of the Ministry officials heading the law to be watching us too closely.

"Really?" Allie squealed, and then looked at me sceptically. "Are you sure?"

"Pretty much." I admitted. She narrowed her eyebrows, and I held my arms up in my defence. "Hey! Don't look at me like that! I have my sources. A Ministry official has confirmed it unofficially to me." She smiled at that.

"So, what are the special circumstances?" It was good that she asked; I'd already memorised them.

"Pregnancy, estrangement, sexual orientation, mental disorders, you know, the usual." She rolled her eyes at me – it was clear that she didn't know any of the 'usual' ones.

"Right." She said. "So if I explain to them Edward and my's situation, will we be able to change partners?" I shrugged.

"Exceptional circumstances only." I informed her. "I don't know much at all."

"Then why did you tell me?!" she cried. "You know I hate it when I don't know anything about something!" I giggled at her expression – it was a mix between outrage, annoyance and exasperation.

"I felt like annoying you." I told her nonchalantly. All of a sudden, her face lit up, just as if she had an idea. No doubt she had.

"What if –" she began. This probably wasn't going to end well. "What if I said that I was a lesbian? Then I wouldn't have to marry anyone, because I wouldn't be able to reproduce!" she grinned at her bright idea, and I felt a little sad to have to be the one to shoot her down.

"I think they run a lot of tests, Al. They do background tests, interview your friends, test your personality - the whole shebang. And you never know what the Ministry might make you do. You don't really want to marry a girl, do you?" she looked a little put down at all of this; no wonder. She cocked, her head to the side, as if she were contemplating the idea of marriage to a woman. "Do you?" I checked worriedly.

"I don't know." She purred, leaning into me and stroking my hair. I backed away as far as I could in my chair, but it wasn't far enough. "Are you available?" there goes her flirting again, her little pouty face and her tilted body. I lasted exactly three point five seconds before cracking up; three point five seconds better than my record. It didn't take long for her to join in.

We didn't calm down for at least 5 minutes – five minutes of non-stop laughter, holding our stomachs because we were laughing so hard. The other occupants of the cafe were definitely looking at us weirdly, but we were long past the point of caring. Allie brought out my rarely seen funny side.

"Ah, my tummy hurts." I finally groaned, when we managed to stop our public display of happiness.

"Mine too." She grimaced. She glanced at her watch and sighed; I looked at mine too. "Ugh, I have to go." She said. "My sister will be expecting me soon."

"As will Newels." I agreed, stacking up our coffee cups and plates before standing up.

"Where have you got, again?" Allie asked me. "Sitarjarhl and I have the Sense Analysis room." The Sense Analysis room was easily the most scientific out of all of the rooms in our department, and usually only the ones qualified with high NEWTs were permitted to work there. Since both Allie and I were highly qualified (almost all Os), she'd been in there once before I'd been there a couple of times. It was pretty interesting, but the different aromas hanging around always made me feel a little dizzy.

"The Time Room." I reminded her. I picked up my usual stack of papers from the seat next to me and Allie picked up her satchel. We waved our thanks to the coffee guys behind the counter and stepped out of the door together, chatting as we walked to the local floo fireplaces.

It wasn't strictly classified to talk about these things out of work, but the girls and I had never yet been caught out for it. Nobody had overheard us, though – they didn't call us Unspeakables for nothing. We seemed to be able to take a normal conversation and make it ten times quieter it was no wonder everyone's hearing in the Department of Mysteries was so good, and it was no wonder that no normal wizard could properly understand us when we were talking at this volume.

"Aren't they attempting to create new time-turners?" she asked me as we strolled down the well worn streets of Diagon Alley, dodging the late night shoppers and early night party-goers.

"Are they? I didn't know that. I guess I haven't been to many of the meetings lately – you know how research work is."

"Yeah. I've just finished mine, too." She neatly sidestepped a pile of hippogriff dung and gestured to my arms full of files, sealed with a locking charm only able to be broken by me and the department head – or else on pain of severe trauma. "There's too much paperwork nowadays! I say, we just go out, find some stuff, and write a single report! Like what we did back in the olden days." I laughed at her as we joined the floo queue.

"Al, you've only been here less than a year! What do you know about the olden days?" I giggled.

"Enough." She said haughtily. "A year can be a long time, you know. New spells, decrees... laws." She glanced ahead of her to the queue, where only one person was waiting patiently. "Anyway, I have to go now." She hugged me briefly before grabbing a handful of floo powder from the public pot above the roaring flames in the fireplace – _'Premium floo not available; bring your own from home'_. "I'll see you tomorrow?" her statement came out as a sort of question.

"Sure." I replied. "I'll be there." Then I watched as she stepped into the fire and disappeared in a whirl of green flames.

"Fred?" I called out. The apartment was eerily silent, an unusual occurrence for the twins were usually testing out one new product or the other. "Fred?" I called again. I was a little more worried now; he'd said to meet him here 10 minutes ago, and I'd been all ready to apologise for being late.

My concern grew into full fretting – Molly style – when he didn't show up for a further two hours. I'd made myself busy around the apartment – cleaning (you have no idea how messy these twins are), rewriting recipes for their products (who could read their writing, I had no idea) and generally lounging about. I watched a few shows on the TV I'd introduced them to, couldn't concentrate on them over my anxiety.

Eventually, I apparated to the Burrow to see if I could find out any news about where the boys could possibly be. When I got there, I was greeted with chaos. Weasley chaos.

George was conjuring up numerous different rubber birds, twirling them around in the air before chucking them towards a very happy Teddy; this was how he expressed his nervousness – through anything to do with pranking. Angie was sitting at the top of the stairs, smoothing down the twigs on the end of her broomstick; Harry and Ginny were sitting together on the squashy sofa, each keeping one eye on Teddy and the other on the family clock at the front of the room. From where I stood, I could see Harry's expression. He already blamed the deaths from the war on himself; and he was sure to blame this disappearance on him too, even though there was not any evidence to suggest it was Death Eaters.

Luna was sitting cross legged on the floor, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. I wasn't quite sure why she was here, but I embraced the fact. In the corner, Ron was chatting quietly with Susan. I hadn't seen her in a long time – no doubt she was trying to think of the most recent fractions of the law and how they related to this case. Percy was sitting at the dining room table. His head was in his hands, so I couldn't see his face, but I could see Audrey at the other side of the room talking with Arthur; she was throwing him concerned glances every few seconds. He had probably wanted to be alone – anything to do with family in danger threw him now, because he felt so bad for leaving it.

Charlie wasn't here, no doubt still in Romania with his dragons. I hoped nobody has told him yet – the unnecessary worry wouldn't be good for him on his already demanding lifestyle. He'd only want to come home and be with the family, which wasn't great for his job. Bill was sat down at a different table to Percy, the kitchen one this time. A long parchment was spread out in front of him, and he was frantically scribbling on it as quickly as he could think. Fleur was standing behind him, observing what he was doing and giving him reassuring squeezed on his shoulder every so often. And there was Molly, running around the house trying to calm everyone down. Needless to say that she wasn't being too successful with it. I took one look at the room and soon gave up hopes of trying to be heard over the noise they were all making. Honestly, for a bunch of people who seemed to just be quietly chatting, they sure made a lot of noise. So, I took matters into my own hands.

Clambering up onto the dining room table, and almost stepping on Percy's hand in the process, I raised my wand and non-verbally let off a series of bright red sparks. When there was silence, I raised my voice to be heard by everyone.

"Okay. I know everyone is worried – and there's no reason we shouldn't be – but being here won't help! We have to split up and search – do something other than sit around here waiting for news! There's not going to be any news if we're all here, is there?" there was a murmur of agreement across the room.

George stood up, halting his procession of rubber chickens, and made his way over to me. Teddy looked up, his bottom lip trembling, both curious and upset as to where his toys had gone.

"Hermione's right." He announced when he was standing right next to me. His head was level with my waist. "I think that we should divide into pairs and each search a different place. If we find him, or anything, we'll come straight back here or send out a patronus." Various heads nodded at his statement.

"Right." He affirmed, clearly having become the designated leader of our little search party. "Angie and I will search the shop and north Diagon Alley.

"I'll search southern Diagon Alley and the Leaky Cauldron." Volunteered Bill.

"I'll join you." Percy added.

"We'll do the fields and Quidditch pitch." Ginny spoke up, walking over to join Fleur. The two had bonded quite well in the months since the war, with the Phlegm phase well behind them now. Fleur smiled gratefully at Ginny; she loved to roam the fields surrounding the Burrow.

"We can search the Ministry and muggle London." Ron suggested for Harry and himself. It was quite a big area to search, but as aurors, they could be quite efficient.

"I guess that leaves us with Hogsmeade." Luna smiled. She meant me and Susan, of course – Audrey wasn't the one to get too involved – she'd stay at home with Molly to receive any news and to take care of Teddy while Ginny and Harry were out.

"Is that it?" I asked, looking around the room.

"I think so." George said. "We can always look in other places once we've searched ours." He added.

"Sure." I smiled, and climbed down from the table. "What are you waiting for?" I asked. "We've got a twin to find!"

* * *

**Disclaimer: **I wish...

**Note: **I know, I know... I had the first 5 pages of this chapter written for months, but I just kept putting off finishing it! I am incredibly sorry... To anyone who has stuck with this story, THANK YOU! I love all of my readers out there! But 20 chapters, hey? Woop woop!

(By the way, this is not edited, as I wanted to get the chapter up tonight...)

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titaniumroze


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